At around 1.40
in the morning, a car was moving towards Bulandshahar on Jewar-Bulandshahar
highway in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh. Suddenly, something hit the tyre of
the speeding car. The driver parked the car and stepped out. Just then six men
wearing masks and carrying guns, iron rods, and wooden sticks surround him.
They gang-raped
four women – in the age bracket of 20-50 years — sitting inside the parked car.
“When my brother-in-law protested, he was shot dead. They raped me in front of
him. When I told them that I have had surgery, they didn’t bother to listen,”
said one of the survivors.
This
incident happened on the intertwining night of May 24-25, 2017. Recently, the
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released its data. As per the data, 359,849
cases of crime against women were registered in 2017, which included rape,
dowry deaths, abetment of suicide, acid attacks, violence against women,
kidnappings and killings.
As per the data,
the maximum number of cases have been registered in Uttar Pradesh (56,011), followed
by Maharashtra (31,979), West Bengal (30,992), Madhya Pradesh (29,778),
Rajasthan (25,993) and Assam (23,082).
Crime
against women has seen an increasing trend in the past three years. In 2015,
around 3.3 lakh crime cases against women were registered, while in 2016,
around 3.4 lakh cases were registered. However, as per the recent data, around
3.6 lakh cases were registered in 2017.
In 2017,
32,559 rape cases were reported — in 93.1% cases the culprit was known to the
victim. With 5,562 cases, Madhya Pradesh tops the list.
Commenting
on the data released by the NCRB, Arvind Kumar Jain, ex- DGP of Uttar Pradesh, said
instead of releasing the data pertaining to the number of cases registered, the
government should release data related to the number of cases in which arrests were
made.
“The
situation will change only when the police will work on the ground. When we
talk about crime records in Uttar Pradesh, we should keep in mind that it is
the most populated states in the country. Number of crimes depend on population.
Also, in most of the cases, culprits were known to the victims. Being a part of
the society, we should be aware of such cases. We should identify these
people with criminal bend,” said the ex-DGP.
