As 2023 gets off to a grim mark, crimes against women register increase by 15 per cent

Vibha Sharma

Chandigarh, January 4

A 20-year-old girl dragged to death, a jilted lover stabs a young girl for rebuking his advances, the year 2023 dawned with more grim statistics of crimes against women adding to the NRCB data of such incidents in the country.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, as many as 4,28,278 cases of crime against women were registered during 2021—an increase of 15.3 per cent over 2020 (3,71,503 cases).

The majority of cases of crimes against women under IPC were registered under “cruelty by husband or his relatives” (31.8 per cent) followed by “assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty” (20.8 per cent), “kidnapping and abduction of women” (17.6 per cent) and “rape” (7.4 per cent).

The crime rate registered per lakh women population was 64.5 in 2021 in comparison with 56.5 in 2020, as per the NRCB data released last year.

In the region, Haryana topped the dubious list with as many as 16658 cases followed by 14277 in Delhi.

Officials, though, do not consider the increase in the number of crimes as a reflection of the ineffectiveness of the police. The increase in crime numbers in a State police data may in fact be on account of certain citizen-centric police initiatives, like launching of e-FIR facility or women Helpdesks, etc, they add

NRCB officials say as crime increases with population, crime per lakh population or crime rate may be a better indicator to assess increase or decrease in crime, “however, the presumption that the upward swing in police data indicates an increase in crime and thus a reflection of the ineffectiveness of the police is fallacious”.

“‘Rise in crime’ and ‘increase in registration of crime by police’ are clearly two different things, a fact which requires better understanding,” they add

According to the NRCB officials the oft-repeated expectation from certain quarters that an effective police administration will be able to keep the crime figures low is “misplaced”.

“The increase in crime numbers in State police data may in fact be on account of certain citizen-centric police initiatives, like launching of e-FIR facilities or Women Helpdesks, etc.

“The increase or decrease in crime numbers, however, does call for a professional investigation of underlying factors jointly with local communities to suitably address the issues involved,” officials add.