Whopping 12 lakh sex offenders in Indian database: Minister Smriti Irani

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 8

India's official database on sex offenders now lists a whopping 12 lakh people ever convicted under charges of rape, gang-rape, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act or outraging the modesty of women.

This number was around 4.5 lakh when the National Registry of Sex Offenders was launched in the country in 2018, with a view to deterring crimes against women and children and empowering law enforcement.

The number of sex offenders enlisted as of today is three times the original data. 

The reason is a pan-India exercise conducted at the behest of the Women and Child Development Ministry which insisted on granular data on all sex offenders to ensure the convicts do not enter the child care delivery system in the country.

"As part of government interventions to the POCSO Act amendments, we had mandated police verification of every employee who gets recruited by any establishment serving the cause of children. For this to happen, we needed accurate national data on sex to facilitate police verification of child care institution employees and recruits. The National Crimes Record Bureau has informed that it now has a database of 12 lakh sex offenders in India," Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani said on Thursday, detailing the work of her department, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government marks nine years in office.

The National Registry of Sex Offenders is made available only to law enforcement agencies to enable deterrence to crimes.

It includes the names, photos, residential addresses, finger prints, DNA samples, PAN and Aadhaar numbers of convicted sex offenders.

Irani shared other critical data saying over five crore people had visited the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (toll free number 1930) and 11 lakh plus complaints were received on it.

She said the Government's Emergency Response Reporting System had so far received 29 crore calls and 733 one stop centres for holistic care to survivors of crime had been set up across India so far.

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