Crime against children up 26 pc: NCRB report

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 1

Even as the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution stipulates law and order in the state list, during one complete year (2015) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime at the Centre, the country witnessed perceptible surge in “crimes against children” and also in cases of human trafficking, which increased by 25.8 per cent over the previous year.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) annual report “Crime in India-2015”, which was released by Home Minister Rajnath Singh yesterday, the increase in the crimes “against children” took place by 5.3 per cent in 2015 in comparison to previous year. “In absolute terms, it increased from 89,423 in 2014 to 94,172 cases in 2015 of which kidnapping and abduction constituted 44.5 per cent,” the report revealed. As per the report, the incidences of registered cases of human trafficking increased from 5,466 in 2014 to 6,877 in 2015.

Among the states under column “crimes against children”, the contribution of J&K (0.3%), Punjab (1.9%) and HP (0.5%) along with seven sisters of Northeast (0.18) has been negligible. But Haryana, despite having smaller geographical expanses and population, contributed maximum with 3.5 per cent from the northern region.

The standout among the states having maximum crimes against children, according to the report are Maharashtra (14.8%), Madhya Pradesh (13.7%), Uttar Pradesh (12.1%) and West Bengal (5.3%), which together contributed approximately half of the total registered cases. In cases of human trafficking, Assam and West Bengal recorded the maximum having contributed 21.7 per cent and 18.2 per cent, respectively.