What is the issue?
The annual report, ‘Crime in India’ was released by NCRB to provide insights on the patterns of crimes that were registered in 2020.
What does the report say?
- Crime rate - States/UTs such as Tamil Nadu (1808.8), Kerala (1568.4) and Delhi (1309.6) recorded the highest crime rate (crimes per one lakh people) overall.
- Crime against women - There was an 8.3% decline and out of the total registered cases, 30.2% were of the category “cruelty by husband or his relatives”.
- Crime against Children- A decline of 13.2% has been reported in cases registered for committing crimes against children.
- Crime against SCs and STs - An increase of 9.4% and 9.3% respectively have been reported in 2020.
- Economic offences - There was a reduction in the registered number of economic offences (by 12% since 2019) but cybercrimes recorded an increase of 11.8%.
- Sedition - Cases related to sedition declined from 93 in 2019 to 73 last year having Manipur and Assam with leading cases.
- Communal riots - communal riots registered an increase of 96% in 2020 over the previous year and caste riots saw an increase of close to 50%.
- Violent crimes - violent crimes decreased by 0.5% but murder has registered a marginal increase of 1%.
- Offences against the State – It include cases related to sedition, waging war against the nation, provisions of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Official Secrets Act and Damage to Public Property Act.
- 2020 saw a 27% drop in cases over 2019 related to offences against the state.
- Agrarian riots - It saw a 38% increase over 2019 due to unprecedented protests against the three farm laws passed by the Centre.
What is the impact of pandemic on the pattern of crimes?
- The year 2020 saw prolonged lockdowns which coincided with a high number of complaints of domestic violence.
- The lockdown also led to an overall fall in crime related to theft, burglary and dacoity.
- The COVID-19 related disruption led to a greater registration of cases due to disobedience to government order and violations of other State local laws.
- As lockdown has led to increase in digital transactions, cybercrimes also saw a rise.
Source: The Hindu, The Indian Express
