According to the MHA, 650 communal incidents occurred during the first ten months of 2015 ending October 2015, compared to 644 such incidents in the full calendar year of 2014 in which 95 people lost their lives and 1921 injured. During 2013, the number of communal incidents was 823 resulting in loss of 133 lives and injury of 2269 persons. Two major communal riots recorded in 2013 were at Dhule in Maharashtra and Muzaffar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. During the current year 2015 up to October, the MHA sought two reports, one each on major communal strife from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

During 2014, the Government of India, having been alarmed, sought reports from six States of Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and Haryana for one major communal riots in each of these States.
The MHA takes detailed reports from States and Union Territories on all major and important communal incidents, which help the Union Government share suitable advisories and information with all States and Union Territories in order to sensitise them for a better preventive, precautionary and protective measures against communal flare up. Such advisories have a positive impact on State and Union Territory Governments.

According to the MHA, of the total 650 communal conflicts up to October 2015, in the outgoing year 2015, the highest number of 139 communal violence recorded was in Uttar Pradesh, followed by 97 in Maharashtra, 86 in Madhya Pradesh, 79 in Karnataka, 59 in Bihar, 54 in Rajasthan, 47 in Gujarat, 24 in Jharkhand, 24 in West Bengal, 10 in Telengana, eight in Uttrakhand, five in Delhi, three each in Haryana and Tamil Nadu, two each in Assam, Chhattisgarh and Jammu & Kashmir, one each in Himachal Pradesh and Kerala.

According to the MHA, public order and police are the State subjects in the scheme of the Constitution of India. The responsibility of maintaining law and order, registration and prosecution of crimes rest primarily with the State Governments. However, to maintain communal harmony country wide, the Government of India assists the State Governments and Union Territory Administrations in multiple ways like sharing of intelligence, sending alert messages, advisories, deploying Central Armed Forces including the composite Rapid Action Force (RAF), created especially to deal with communal situations, to the concerned State Governments on specific requests. The Centre also assists the State Governments in the modernization of Police.