Last year can be said to be the best for India in the sense that there were less crimes in the year 2022 as compared to the year 2021. According to the Crime Report 2022 in India, the police registered 36 lakh cases last year, which is 3 percent less than the year 2021.
The crime rate or crime as a proportion of the population has also declined. However, during this period, cases like crimes against women, caste crimes and digital fraud have increased. Additionally, the number of cases filed by the police has also declined in 2022 following improvements during the global pandemic.
Crime rates and the number of chargesheets filed also differed in different cities of India. Overall, more than 29 lakh cases were registered last year. Delhi recorded 1,832.6 cases per 1 lakh population, which is seven times the national average.
However, the rate of charge sheet filing in the city was the lowest at 30.2 percent. The crime rate in Jaipur was 916.7 per lakh population and in Indore it was 767.7. The crime rate in Mumbai was 376.3 and the highest charge sheet filing rate was 77.
With more than 11,000 cases, Delhi had the highest number of violent crimes compared to all other metros. After this there were 5000 such cases in Mumbai. The number of such cases in Bengaluru and Pune was more than 2,000. Violent crimes include murder, feticide, dowry death, grievous hurt, kidnapping, rape, rioting and dacoity etc.
Reduction in national crime does not mean disposal of such cases in courts. Analysis shows that compared to the year 2021, the conviction rate also decreased by 3 percent to 54.2 percent in the year 2022. In 2020, the year of the global pandemic, it increased to 59 percent. Despite the reduction in conviction rate, the rate of pending cases has also reduced. About 89 percent of the cases are pending in the courts in the year 2022, which has decreased from 91 percent in the year 2021.
Meanwhile, the situation in dealing with crimes against women has also worsened. One in every ten crimes was against women. In the year 2022, more than 3.65 lakh cases were related to harassment of women, that is, about 1,001 such cases were being registered every day. This is 2 percent more than the year 2021. In 40 percent of such cases, the woman's husband or his relatives are involved. The cases of kidnapping and exploitation were 23 percent and the cases of rape were 8.6 percent of these.
The conviction rate for crimes against women also remained lowest among all criminal cases. In the year 2022, only 23.3 percent of the culprits were sentenced while 93 percent of the cases remained pending. The conviction rate in cases like rape and gang rape was 69.4 percent. Whereas in cases of cruelty by husband it was 17.7 percent. More than 90 percent of the cases in both crimes remained pending.
The highest number of 12,552 cases of crimes against women were registered in Delhi. The national capital was followed by financial capital Mumbai with more than 5,000 cases. There were around 3,186 such cases in Jaipur while 2,737 such cases were reported from Hyderabad and 2,264 such cases were reported from Bengaluru.
Since the global pandemic, cases of cyber crime and digital fraud have also increased as more people have turned to digital transactions. More than 6,400 cases of online banking fraud were reported in 2022, a huge increase since 2019.
While cases of One Time Password (OTP) fraud increased by 430 per cent to more than 2,910, ATM related fraud has declined. Telangana stood first with 3,223 victims of such frauds in the year 2022. This is followed by Maharashtra (909), Andhra Pradesh (569) and Uttar Pradesh (483).
First Published – December 8, 2023 | 10:16 PM IST
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