Crimes Against Women Increased Under Yogi Govt, NCRB Data Suggests

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has released the ‘Crime in India’ report for the year 2018, which showed a shocking increase of 20% in crimes against women from 2016 to 2019 in Uttar Pradesh.

NCRB, which works under the Ministry of Home Affairs, has marked Uttar Pradesh as the most unsafe state for women. According to its report for 2017 released on October 21 last year, after a delay of more than one and a half years, 56,011 cases of crime against women were reported while the number has surged to 59,445 in 2018 in Uttar Pradesh followed by Maharashtra (35,497) and West Bengal (30,394).

Meanwhile, the number has been increasing over the years as 35,908 cases were registered in 2015 and 49,262 in 2016. Uttar Pradesh is at the top of the tally with 15.7% cases. Of the total cases, 2,444 are of dowry deaths, 14,233 of domestic violence and 15,381 kidnappings.

In 2018, 3,946 rape cases were registered involving 4,322 victims, including 1,411 minors. The state in 2017 had reported 4,246 rape cases—second highest in the country after Madhya Pradesh, in which victims were minor in almost 1560 cases. As many as 5401 cases under POCSO were registered in 2018.

Crimes Against Scheduled Castes Increase

Uttar Pradesh witnessed a tremendous jump of close to 27.9% in crimes against those belonging to the Scheduled Castes in 2017, second only by a short margin to Madhya Pradesh.

The NCRB annual report for 2018, released on Thursday, noted that 11,924 cases of crimes against Scheduled Caste were registered in Uttar Pradesh—which was again ranked first—as compared to 10,426, with an increase of 14.26%.

Meanwhile, under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 232 cases of murder were reported in UP. In these cases, 239 people belonging to the Scheduled Castes were killed in 2018.

Violent Crimes Spike

As per data, a total of 29,017 cases of murder were registered during 2018, showing an increase of 1.2% over the year 2017 (28,653 cases).

Apart from this, 21,711 cases of kidnapping, 8,908 of rioting and 3,218 cases of robbery were recorded in 2018 in Uttar Pradesh. The number of cases of violent crimes has spiked significantly over the past few years as 19,921 cases have been reported in 2017 and 15,898 in 2016.

Crimes against children also have risen in the past few years. The state recorded 19,936 cases of crime against children in 2018, 19,145 in 2017 and 16,079 in 216.

Even though Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has repeatedly claimed that his government is committed to women’s safety and security, the data presents a different picture.