Rape and molestation cases have almost doubled in five years in Mumbai, according to a white paper submitted on Tuesday by non-profit organisation Praja.
The paper said that starting from the financial year 2013-14, rape cases increased by a shocking 83 per cent and molestation cases increased by 93 per cent till 2017-18. According to the Times of India, the findings were filed with information gathered from Right to Information (RTI) queries.
However, murder, chain snatching and thefts saw a steady dip and rioting saw an increase of 36 per cent. The data reveals that there were 171 murder cases in 2013 while the numbers fell to 115 such cases in the financial year 2017-18. Chain snatching cases had a dramatic dip between the five years where there were 2110 cases in 2013-14 while only 162 cases in 2017-18.
When it comes to rape cases, 432 cases were reported in 2013-14 while the numbers increased to 792 in 2017-18. The reports claim that rape cases in South Mumbai increased by 172 per cent while and North Mumbai saw a staggering increase in molestation cases by 186 per cent during the five years. Cases of child sexual abuse filed under the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act rose by 19 per cent between 2015-16 and 2017-18.
The report by TOI says that one of the reasons why the number of rape and molestation case have increased is because more women have come forward to report such incidents. Mumbai's DCP Manjunath said that it could be because the police are seen as more people friendly.
Comparing crimes reported in Mumbai in 2017 and 2018
While comparing the cases in 2017 and 2018, there were 199 cases of attempt to murder in 2017 and the numbers went up to 280 in 2018. The number of thefts went down from 6,704 cases to 6,260 in 2018.
The number of house break-ins also went down from 2,409 cases to 2,244 cases in 2018. However, sexual crimes, especially rapes, showed a drastic increase of over 20 per cent from 1,218 cases in 2017 to 1,459 cases in 2018.
These crimes included crimes of sexual nature against children under the POCSO Act. There were 889 cases of sexual crimes against women and 570 cases of crimes against minors in 2018.
