Crime rate shoots up by 5% in 2010, with surge in murder, rape

The latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) paints a grim picture of the rapidly increasing crime rate in India, with the year 2010 recording an increase of 4.9 per cent compared to 2009.

The findings, part of the 'Crimes in India' report released by Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday, shows that cases like attempt to murder, rape, kidnapping and abduction, robbery, dowry death, crime against women and children have shown an upward trend in the past year.

A total of 22,24,831 crimes were reported under Indian Penal Code against 21,21,345 cases in the year 2009. Murder cases during the year 2010 (33,335) went up by 3.0% as compared to 2009 (32,369).

The statistics which include data from 35 mega cities shows increase in rape cases (3.6%), kidnapping and abduction (13.5%), robbery cases (4.4%) and dowry deaths (0.1%).

Appallingly, crime against women during 2010 (2,13,585) has gone up by 4.8% compared to 2009 (2,03,804), and crime against children has also gone up by 10.3% in 2010 (26,694) compared to 2009 (24,201).

In addition, while crime against Scheduled castes declined by 2.6% in 2010 compared to 2009, crime against Scheduled Tribes during 2010 has shown an increase of 8.5% as compared to 5425 cases in 2009.

Furthermore, some 3,84,649 lives were lost in the year 2010 due to road accidents (an increase of 7.7%), and 1,34,599 persons committed suicides, most of them by consuming poison.

According to the statistics, Delhi registered most cases among 35 cities of the country. Delhi reported 414 rape cases in 2010 with Mumbai following it up with 194 such incidents.

A total of 1,422 kidnappings of women have taken place in Delhi last year. There were 112 dowry deaths and 1,273 incidents of cruelty by husband or relatives in the capital.

Among states, out of total of 8,391 dowry death cases in the country, Uttar Pradesh has reported 2,217 cases of dowry death followed by Bihar having 1,257 cases.

The highest rate of violent crimes was reported from Manipur (34.5) followed by J&K (34.2), Kerala (33.6), Assam (33.5) and Delhi (30.4)

The National Crime Records Bureau has been publishing statistics on crime in India from the year 1953 and the current edition "Crime in India-2010" is its 58th edition. NCRB has digitized all the editions of crime in India from 1953 to 2010.

It is also implementing CCTNS (Crime and criminal tracking network and systems), a mission mode project of the Home Ministry under national e-Governance plan to connect all the 15,000 police stations and 6,000 odd higher police offices across the country.

This project is likely to be rolled out by March 2012. Once operational, the reports would be available by the end of each year as NCRB will receive data online.