A shocking report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has found that India’s elite scientists are at risk of being killed or disappeared by drug gangs, with at least 13 cases of murder and suicide.
The report, published by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in India, said that in a year since the report was launched, more than 1,000 scientists and engineers in the country had been murdered, and the country’s scientists were under increasing threat.
The report by Dr Harsha Bhogle of the UNODC, released on Thursday, said the number of scientists killed had risen from 459 in 2015 to 533 in 2016, and in 2017, it was 631.
The total number of killed scientists is a staggering number considering that India has one of the lowest murder rates in the world.
According to a study published in 2016 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, India has more than 3,000 murdered scientists.
According the report, the number killed in 2016 was a record 1,077 and in 2015 it was 1,813.
The number of people who have died by suicide in India has also risen sharply, from 1,719 in 2015, to 1,988 in 2016 and 1,953 in 2017.
According it, the most popular methods of killing were poisoning, gunpowder, firearms and car bombs.
We are asking for the appointment of a national counter-drugs command, an independent and impartial investigation, and a new mechanism to protect the intellectual property of the scientists and academics,” he added.””
India’s scientists and other academics are being the prime targets of this, and it is alarming that the country does not have a single functioning national police force.”
“We are asking for the appointment of a national counter-drugs command, an independent and impartial investigation, and a new mechanism to protect the intellectual property of the scientists and academics,” he added.
“We call on the Government of India to immediately initiate a thorough investigation into these incidents and to provide immediate relief to the affected families.”
India has about 6.4 million scientists and about 1.8 million engineers.