Story in numbers: Crime rate falls, but women still at risk, shows data

While addressing events in Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow and Mirzapur on August 1, 2021, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, mainly credited the Yogi Adityanath-led UP government with how it claimed “top spot” in terms of law and order. “In four years, the Yogi government has worked to make Uttar Pradesh riot-free, free from land mafia and provide security to the mothers and sisters of Uttar Pradesh,” the union Home Minister said.

This claim is false. Uttar Pradesh recorded 5,714 cases of riots in 2019 alone, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. In 2018, the state saw 8,908 cases and ranked second in the country with 8,990 cases in 2017. In 2016, the number of cases stood at 8,018. UP CM Yogi Adityanath made another such claim on March 20, 2021, when he said no riots had occurred since he took charge as CM in 2017.

Shah also said: “In the last four years, there has been a huge reduction in incidents like robbery, dacoity, murder in the state.”

This claim is true. As per NCRB data, UP saw a steady decline in robbery, dacoity and murder cases between 2017 and 2019. In 2017, UP recorded 4,089 cases of robbery which then dropped to 3,218 in 2018 and 2,241 in 2019.

Similarly, related to dacoity nearly halved in the state — from reporting 263 cases in 2017 to 144 in 2018 and 124 in 2019. Cases related to murder also decreased from 4,324 in 2017, to 4,018 in 2018 and further dropping to 3,806 in 2019.

But when it comes to cases registered under crimes against women, UP ranked the highest at 59,445 in 2018 and 59,853 in 2019. Moreover, UP is the third-highest in terms of pending cases of crimes against women (1.84 lakh), according to a February 2, 2021 Lok Sabha reply. At 2.57 lakh such pending cases, West Bengal tops the list, followed by Maharashtra at 2.07 lakh.

Data and text: IndiaSpend