More cases being reported due to growing awareness of women’s rights and increased police sensitisation
Mumbai : The number of rape cases reported in the city has gone up by 478 in a span of five years, according to data collected by Praja Foundation. The total number of rape cases has increased from 165 in 2010-11 to 643 in 2014-15. The reason for high reporting, they say, is growing awareness of women’s rights and also increased police sensitisation of the issue.
The Foundation on Tuesday released data detailing the number of crimes reported in the city and the percentage increase starting from 2010 to July 2015. In the year 2010-11, the city saw 165 rape cases reported which increased to 187 in 2011-12.
Since 2012, the number has been steadily increasing, in 2012-13 the number of rape cases reported spiked to 294. In 2013-14, the number to 432 cases being reported and in 2014 to 2015 (July), the number of cases was 643.
Nitai Mehta, Managing Trustee, Praja Foundation, while releasing the data, explained that the alarming increase is due to two reasons. “In addition to the fact that there was an actual increase in the number of such crimes committed, there is also an increase in the number of people reporting such crimes with more victims not fearing the social stigma and reporting the incident to security personnel,” Mehta explained.
The results also threw light at the increasing number of molestation cases reported in the city. The year of 2014-2015 saw a total of 1,675 cases reported as compared to the 1,209 cases in 2013-14.
The city was shaken up when in 2013, a young woman was gangraped inside Shakti Mills, an incident which reminded us of the horrifying New Delhi gangrape in a moving bus. While the incident shook the city’s famous tag of ‘ safest city in the country’, it also caused the police and people to be more aware and alert. The Mumbai Police recently launched vehicles to solely address calls made to helplines regarding women and child safety issues.
But the experts at Praja feel a lot more needs to be done. “The conviction rates for serious offences like rape and murder are dismally low. We studied a total of 550 cases being tried in Sessions Court and found that of these, the accused in 423 had been acquitted while only 127 led to the accused being convicted,” said Milind Mhaske, Praja Foundation.
They said the reason for such low conviction rate was the failure to prove charge. “Of all the cases, 386 cases received acquittals because of failure to present enough evidence or lack of witnesses. This shows failure on the part of investigating officers and prosecuting lawyers,” he said.
