Caste harassment, crimes against women increase in 5 years: NCRB report

Crimes against women and scheduled castes have increased since 2018 as more cases piled up before courts, data collected from a national database showed.
 

More than 57,000 cases of crimes against scheduled castes (SC) were reported in 2022, at an average of 158 daily. Such crimes increased by about 35 per cent between 2018 and 2022, according to fresh data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) (chart 1).

 

Analysis shows that six states, which make up 50 per cent of India’s SC population, account for over 76 per cent of all caste-related crimes. While 27 per cent of such crimes were reported in Uttar Pradesh (UP), 15 per cent were in Rajasthan, 13 per cent in Madhya Pradesh (MP), 11 per cent in Bihar and 5 per cent in Odisha and Maharashtra each.
 

Court disposal of crimes against SCs has increased, but pendency remains high. Conviction rates increased from 28.5 per cent in 2018 to 34 per cent in 2022. On the other hand, the share of cases pending trial at the end of 2022 was 94.4 per cent.
 

Crime against women
 

In the last five years, crimes against women increased by 13 per cent to 365,300 in 2022. Around 1,000 cases were registered daily compared to 886 in 2018.
 

Cruelty by husband or his relatives accounted for 38.3 per cent of all crimes against women — the most in this bracket. Next was “kidnapping and abduction” of women with 23.4 per cent share, followed by “assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty” (22.8 per cent) and rape (8.6 per cent) (chart 2).

 

UP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, West Bengal and MP accounted for half of the crimes against women in India.

While the conviction rate increased from 21.0 per cent in 2018 to 23.3 per cent in 2022, the share of cases pending trial at the end of the year also increased from 90.7 per cent to 92.7 per cent.
 

Rise in cybercrime
 

Data shows that 22 per cent of all cybercrime (65,893) cases were against women in 2022. Karnataka had the highest number of such crimes reported against women, followed by Maharashtra, Telangana, UP and Andhra Pradesh.
 

Cybercrime against women include blackmailing, pornography, stalking, morphing and fake profiles.
 

On average, 181 cybercrime cases were reported daily in 2022.
 

Conviction rate in cybercrime cases declined from 47.4 per cent in 2018 to 46.5 per cent in 2022. Cases pending trial declined from 93.3 per cent to 90 per cent.
 

Telangana reported the highest number of cybercrime cases (15,297), followed by 12,556 in Karnataka and 10,117 in UP (chart 3).