40 pc of crimes against senior citizens in 2014-16 in Maha, MP

Nearly 40 per cent of crimes against senior citizens in the country between 2014 and 2016 were reported from two states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, government data shows.

According to a home ministry statistics, the national capital was still among the top seven states in such crimes though it recorded a decline in 2016.

As many as 7,419 cases of such crimes were registered in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh taken together in 2014, which is 39.64 per cent of the total 18,714 cases filed in the country that year, the statistics show.

In 2015, out of 20,532 cases of crimes against senior citizens across India, 39.04 per cent were filed in the two of the geographically largest states, a home ministry official said, quoting the statistics incorporated in the report 'Crimes in India'.

The number of such cases further increased in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh in 2016 with 40.03 per cent of the total 21,410 cases in the country were registered there.

A total of 8,571 cases of crimes against senior citizens were registered in the two states in 2016, an increase of more than 500 compared to 2015 when 8,017 cases were registered, it said.

Individually, Maharashtra topped the list with 3,981, 4,561 and 4,694 cases in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively.

The state accounted for more than one-fifth of the cases of crimes against elderly persons with 21.27 per cent of total cases in 2014, 22.21 per cent in 2015 and 21.92 per cent in 2016.

Its neighbour, MP, followed it with 3,438, 3,456 and 3,877 cases in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively. Among all such cases in the country in 2014, 18.37 per cent cases were registered in MP, the statistics said.

In 2015, 16.83 per cent of all the cases were registered in the central state while 18.10 per cent of all such cases filed the next year were in Madhya Pradesh.

Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana followed Madhya Pradesh with most number of cases registered against senior citizens.

In Delhi, 1,021 such cases were registered in 2014, 1,248 cases in 2015 and 685 cases in 2016. The cases in Delhi were 5.45 per cent of all such cases registered in 2014, 6.07 per cent of the total cases in 2015.

The figure drastically decreased in 2016 with just 3.19 per cent of total cases registered being from Delhi.

No cases of crime against senior citizens were registered in Jammu and Kashmir between 2014 and 2016, the data show.

Uttarakhand and northeastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland reported less than 10 such cases in the said three years.