Crime against Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes saw a rise of 7% and 26% in 2019
Crime against Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) saw an increase of over 7% and 26% respectively in year 2019 compared to 2018, according to the annual Crime in India 2019 report published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Wednesday.
Due to “non-receipt of data” from West Bengal for 2019, the 2018 data has been used to arrive at national and city-wise figures, the NCRB said.
A total of 45,935 cases were registered for committing crime against SCs, showing an increase of 7.3% over 2018, when 42,793 such cases were recorded. At 11,829 cases, Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of crimes against SCs in 2019, followed by 6,794 cases in Rajasthan and 6,544 cases in Bihar, the report said.
Rape cases
In the number of cases of rape of women belonging to SCs, Rajasthan topped the list with 554 cases, followed by Uttar Pradesh at 537 and Madhya Pradesh at 510 cases.
Crime against Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes saw a rise of 7% and 26% in 2019: NCRB
A total of 8,257 cases were registered for committing crime against STs, an increase of 26.5% over 2018, when 6,528 such cases were registered. Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of cases against STs as it recorded 1,922 cases, followed by Rajasthan, which recorded 1,797 cases and Odisha-576 cases. The highest number of incidents of rape of tribal women- 358 was registered in Madhya Pradesh, followed by 180 incidents in Chattisgarh and 114 in Maharashtra.
Simple hurt -1,675 cases formed the highest number of cases of crimes and atrocities against STs, accounting for 20.3% of the total crimes committed in 2019. It was followed by 1,110 cases of rape of tribal women, which accounted for 13.4% and 880 cases of assault on women with the intent to outrage the modesty that accounted for 10.7% of the total cases.
Cognizable crimes
A total of 51,56,172 cognizable crimes comprising 32,25,701 Indian Penal Code (IPC) ones and 19,30,471 Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes were registered in 2019. It showed an increase of 1.6% in registration of cases over 2018 (50,74,635 cases), the NCRB said.
A total of 4,05,861 cases of crime against women were registered in 2019 compared to 3,78,236 cases in 2018, showing an increase of 7.3%.
Cybercrimes increased by 63.5% in 2019. A total of 44,546 cases were registered under cybercrimes, compared to 27,248 cases in 2018. In 2019, 60.4% of cybercrime cases registered were for the motive of fraud (26,891 out of 44,546 cases), followed by sexual exploitation, with 5.1% (2,266 cases), and causing disrepute with 4.2% (1,874 cases).
CHRI statement
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), a police reforms advocacy group, said few cases were being registered for specific discriminatory action against SCs and STs.
Crimes against SCs and STs include the following categories- atrocities committed by non-SC/ST members under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act), 1989 (hereafter POA Act), the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955.
“The low percentage of cases registered just under the POA Act alone indicates that very few cases alleging specific discriminatory actions on the basis of caste and tribal identity that are defined as atrocities under Section 3 of the Act are being registered on their own. Such actions are registered mainly when accompanied by any of the IPC offences. There is no data on total complaints received on crimes against the Scheduled Castes,” the CHRI said.
