The city has emerged as the most unsafe for minors in the state, reporting the highest number of 275 cases wherein the victims were minors, data from the National Crime Record Bureau’s (NCRB) annual report for 2022 showed.
Following Ludhiana’s 275 cases in the second place was Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, which reported 172 cases in the one-year period. Patiala came in third place with 167 cases.
In an interesting finding, however, the number of cases registered were slightly down from the 2021 figure of 283.
The count had stood even lower in 2020, the year that the country was under the Covid-induced lockdown, at 225 cases. The number of cases for crime against children was much higher in the two preceding years, with 328 cases being reported in 2019 and 352 in 2018.
Only one case under the Justice Juvenile Act was reported from the city wherein parents and/or caretakers were booked for ill-treating children. In 2021, the count had stood at two.
According to police officials, as Ludhiana is an industrial city it has a significant population of labourers who live in dedicated residential quarters. Their children, who also live in the shared space, the officials said, were more prone to sexual assaults.
{{/usCountry}}According to police officials, as Ludhiana is an industrial city it has a significant population of labourers who live in dedicated residential quarters. Their children, who also live in the shared space, the officials said, were more prone to sexual assaults.
{{/usCountry}}Murder
The city in 2022 reported a total of eights murder cases where the victims were minors. The number was more than double the 2021 count of three. A year prior, four minors had been reported murdered in the city.
Abduction
In 2022, as many as 126 cases of abduction and kidnapping of minors were reported from the city. The figure was an improvement of the count of 139 abductions reported in 2021. In 2020, with the Covid-induced lockdown and restrictions in place, the figure stood even lower at 117.