Mumbai: Mumbai is considered one of the safest cities for women but the commercial hub is inching towards becoming another shame capital, just like Delhi. The city is witnessing a disturbing trend of rape cases, which have consistently mounted in the last five years. In fact, the rape cases have doubled. The shocking revelation was made in the information furnished by the Mumbai Police in response to an application filed under the Right to Information Act, 2005, filed by activist Shakeel Ahmed Shaikh.
According to the information available, in 2013, the city recorded 388 rape cases; however, the numbers almost doubled in 2017 with 751 such cases being reported across Mumbai. The RTI response further reveals that in 2018 alone, from January till September, a total of 651 rape cases have been registered with the Mumbai police. The most disturbing is the fact that from January 2018 to September 2018, Mumbai has recorded a total of 842 cases, wherein minor girls/boys were raped. There is a need to make the best use of technology, as it can bring down such cases, says Praveen Dixit, the former Director
General of Police (DGP) of Maharashtra. “Instead of increased patrolling or other measures, an emergency button can be installed in all mobile phones. One can press this button whenever they are in some emergency,” said Dixit. According to Dixit, majority of cases go unreported and there are also cases in which the victim does not turn up. “In 98 per cent of such cases, the culprit is a known person. Sometimes such cases are also filed by people in a live-in relationship and the case is registered because of a discord. All this has a cumulative effect on the conviction rate,” Dixit explained.
A similar view was put forth by noted criminal defence lawyer Mallika Ingale. She said that the figures furnished by the police do not reflect all genuine cases. “Majority of these reported cases are false and are usually misused by women. There are times when girls are in a relationship and later on label it as a rape. There are several cases wherein even the police turns a blind eye to an open and shut case of false implication,” Ingale said.
According to Ingale, the police must first look into the allegations and consider the material on record and only then proceed with registering a case. “I think there should be rules to prosecute a girl who falsely implicates a boy in such cases, because that is the reason for the mounting backlog,” said Ingale. “There is a serious need for gender, sensitisation and sex education both in schools and in families, too. Only then, such cases can be brought down,” Ingale added.
