UP is the villain for women: It's official!

By Rashi Aditi Ghosh


Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati might persist in her denial but latest official statistics tell a story of women in the state being the favourite targets of all kinds of crime. Delhi too with a woman chief minister in Sheila Dixit is a favourite ground for crime against women. Worse, not even a single state in the country has witnessed any decline in number of cases against women during 2010-11, confirming the growing fear that women across India are unsafe.
According to latest data furnished by the National Commission for Women (NCW), Uttar Pradesh registered the highest number of crime cases against women followed by Delhi and Rajasthan, respectively. These states emerged as the worst offenders against women for the second year in a row.
The NCW annual report offering statistics updated until February end this year said UP recorded 6,703 crime cases against women while Delhi recorded 2,188 cases and Rajasthan 1,357 such cases. NCW offers crime data for cases registered with it.

Delhi had the distinction of nearly doubling the cases of crime against women during 2010-11 as it had registered 1,405 cases in 2009-10. Rajasthan too witnessed a jump in cases during the year moving up from 884 in 2009-10. The growth in UP, however, was much less with the state recording 6,302 cases in 2009-10.
NCW chairperson Yasmeen Abrar said, “Crime against women is on the rise. Major reasons behind it are lack of proper implementation of law. The blame lies at the door of the government machinery.”
NGO groups, however, decry the government statistics. Sunita Thakur, counsellor form Jagori, a women focus NGO, said, “Crime against women is rising all over India but only few states like UP and Delhi are highlighted. Debate arises at places where people have awareness on women safety but the voiceless states where offences often occur remain unrecorded.”
Indrani Sinha, director, SANLAAP, another women centric NGO said, “Girls are asked to dress up decently and stay home to be safe; this proves that how efficient and capable are the law enforcement agencies in this country.”
NCW data showed that in the year 2010-11 a sum total of 14,151 cases were registered out of which 544 (376 in 2009-10) complaints were for rape, 2,944 for domestic violence, 465 for dowry death (357 in 2009-10) and 505 cases were registered for police harassment.
On the other hand the state-wise data on the number of complaints registered by the NRI Cell of NCW marks Delhi as the lead offender with highest number of complaints (73) followed by Uttar Pradesh (43) and Haryana (40).
The overall data of the country collated by NCW shows that in the year 2009-10, 15,985 cases were registered out of which 11,070 cases were attended and 5,467 cases were solved while 10,498 cases were still pending but during 2010-11, 14,151 cases were registered out of which 10,002 were attended and 4,224 cases were solved while 9,927 cases are still pending.