Nagaland ‘safest’ State for women in India, shows NCRB data

December 5, 2023 311 Views No Comment

Crime against women declines by over 9% in 2022

Morung Express News
Dimapur | December 5

After surging by 38.46% in 2021, ‘Crime Against Women’ declined by over 9% in 2022, designating Nagaland as the ‘safest’ among the states in India, reflected the latest National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) report.

In absolute numbers, the NCRB’s ‘Crime in India – 2022’ report informed that ‘Crime against Women,’ under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and ‘Special and Local Laws (SLL),’ decreased from 54 in 2021 to 49 in 2022. In 2020, the figure stood at 39.

With a mid-year population of 10.7 lakh women in Nagaland in 2022, the crime rate (crime per one lakh of population) was 4.6 in Nagaland, against the national average of 66.2. The Chargesheeting Rate of crimes was also 92.2 in Nagaland against the national average of 75.8.

However, the lowest number of crimes against women among all the States and Union Territories was in Ladakh at 15 cases followed by 16 in Lakshadweep. Both respectively had crime rates of 1.3 and 0.3 each.

Meanwhile, crimes against women were highest in Uttar Pradesh at 65,743, followed by 45,331 in Maharashtra and 34,738 in West Bengal.

Across India, a total of 4,45,256 cases of crimes against women were registered during 2022, showing an increase of 4.0% over 2021 (4,28,278 cases).

The majority of cases under crimes against women under IPC were registered under ‘Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives’ (31.4%) followed by ‘Kidnapping & Abduction of Women’ (19.2%), ‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ (18.7%), and ‘Rape’ (7.1%).

Types of Crimes
In a concerning note, however, most crimes against women in Nagaland had children as victims with 25 registrations under the Protection of Children from Sexual Violence Act (POCSO).

‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ constituted 9 cases, while 7 were designated as ‘Rape.’ There were 3 cases of ‘Cruelty by Husband or his relatives (Sec. 498 A IPC)’; 2 cases of Kidnapping and Abduction of Women – Others (Secs.363A, 365, 367, 368, 369 IPC) and 2 cyber crimes.

The NCrB Report, under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, compiles the report annually based on information obtained from States/Union Territories (UTs) Police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) / Central Police Organisations (CPOs).

“Clarifications on data for Crime in India are pending from Nagaland. Hence, data from Nagaland State may be treated as provisional,” the report added.