Economic Offensive Wing

Over the past two years, the Madhya Pradesh government has launched a broad crackdown on crime.

- Rahul Noronha

However, while this might ordinarily have been a positive development, many say the state’s goal is to be seen as handing out punishments, even if there is no direct link between a crime and the person held responsible for it.

In early January, the Ujjain district administration ordered a crackdown on shops selling manjhas (powdered glass-coated kite strings), as these can often cause serious accidents. On January 4, three people were booked, including Mohammed Zubair Khan, a 28-year old resident of Ujjain’s Topkhana. Then, on January 15, tragedy struck—Neha Anjana, a 20-year-old woman, bled to death after becoming entangled in a manjha that had been abandoned on a road. Anjana’s death resulted in officials re-targeting those they had already punished—Khan says he got a notice on January 16 saying his shop was an illegal structure, and part of it was demolished hours later.