The gang-rape and murder of two teenage girls in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, has yet again highlighted the riseof rape and murder cases of minors across the country over the past six years.
What is also worrying the child rights activists is that even the Capital is not insulated and continues to register a growing number of rape and murder cases among minors.
Save the Children advocacy director Shireen Vakil Miller said: “This is a horrific incident and part of an alarming trend of brutal violence against women and minors, particularly against those from marginalised communities. There is an urgent need for concerted action to be taken in accordance with the law to halt it.”
Figures for Delhi according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicate that over the past six years till 2011 the Capital’s annual figure of this crime (rape of minors) remained above 300 and in 2012 it reached 415 cases.
Further in 2012, 39 minors were murdered in the Capital. The scenario for minors does not look very promising for the rest of the country either. The NCRB figures for rape of minors indicate that 5,045 cases were reported in 2007 and in 2012 the figure touched 8,541.
In 2008, across India the cases of minors being raped stood at 5,446; in 2009 it was 5,336; the following year it touched 5,484; and in 2011 it reached 7,112.
“There is no disputing that a good number of minors getting raped may even have gone unreported to the police,” noted a release issued by Save the Children.
Also over the past six years, except for one year, Madhya Pradesh topped the list for rape cases against minors from 2007.
As per the NCRB statistics, 1,043 minors were raped in Madhya Pradesh in 2007; 892 in 2008; 1,071 in 2009; 1,182 in 2010; and 1,262 in 2011. In 2012, the number reached 1,632.
In 2008, Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 900 rape cases and 1,040 minors were raped in the State in 2012.
Lakshadweep is the only administrative division in the country where no rape of minors has been reported since 2007. The highest rate of this crime in 2012 was in Mizoram — 21.66 cases for a population of a lakh children.
The number of minors murdered in the country in 2012 stood at 1,597. Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 449 murders followed by Maharashtra with 201 and Bihar in the third position with 128 murders. No minors were murdered in Jammu and Kashmir last year.
