Govternment 4,690 arrested, 149 convicted under UAPA

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 22

The government on Wednesday said as many as 4,690 people were arrested in different parts of the country under the stringent anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), in the past three years, and 149 of them got convicted.

Presenting the figures in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State (MoS) for Home Nityanand Rai said 1,421 persons were arrested in 2018 under UAPA, 1,948 in 2019 and 1,321 in 2020. A total of 35 people were convicted in 2018, 34 in 2019 and 80 in 2020, the minister said in a written reply to question in the House.

Rai also made it clear that the conviction is an outcome of an elaborate judicial process and is dependent on various factors, such as duration of the trial, appraisal of evidences and examination of witnesses. “There are adequate Constitutional and statutory safeguards, including in the UAPA, to prevent misuse of the law,” he noted.