3 cases a day in rape Capital
With three cases of sexual abuse a day on an average, Delhi is living up to its tag of ‘crime capital’, reports Ravi Bajpai.
With three cases of sexual abuse a day on an average, Delhi is living up to its tag of ‘crime capital’.
Police say such incidents have actually marginally declined by about 10 per cent this year so far, but try telling that to terrified Delhiites.
The gruesome nature of the crime has just worsened the impact generated by the mind-boggling numbers. A two-and-half year-old girl was this year’s youngest rape victim. Two underage girls were raped in a moving car, one of them by a traffic police constable.
The same month, a woman, who accused her landlord of raping her, was publicly thrashed by family members and neighbours, while a mentally challenged deaf and dumb girl was allegedly raped by a bus driver.
A parliamentary standing committee and the National Commission for Women recently pulled up Commissioner YS Dadwal for the disturbing trend.
According to official figures, 121 cases of rape have been registered so far this year, while about 210 incidents of molestation were reported from various parts of the city. Molestations have actually gone up this year.
Criminal psychologist Rajat Mitra says such incidents, and the widespread media coverage they attract, create a sense of insecurity among people.
“Police should get serious about tackling such cases. They need to institute a specialised unit with trained police personnel, who can deal with such cases and victims professionally,” says Mitra.
Police say they have sensitised its officers about the issue and the workout rate of sexual abuse cases is phenomenal.
“We have arrested the alleged attackers in 98 per cent of such cases,” says Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat. Mitra however, says that presently, police personnel are frequently transferred and no one is able to specialise in dealing with sexual abuse cases. “This needs to be corrected immediately,” says Mitra.
Police’s annual crime report attributes the incidence of sexual abuse to a number of sociological factors, including mushrooming of JJ clusters and sub-human living conditions. Last year, about 80 per cent of the accused belonged to the poor strata.