Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi on Saturday said that the December 16 gangrape brought “increased attention” on crime against women and that “truthful” recording of incidents saw a rise of almost 500 per cent rise in offence against the fairer sex.
“One of the key takeaway from the December 16 gangrape was that cases were not registered due to reluctance on part of the victim and also at time on part of policemen.
“Consequently, it was mandated by an amendment in the year 2013 and also after a lot of debate that if a woman comes to a police station, she will not be denied registration of an FIR if she reports a cognizable offence,” said Mr. Bassi.
Then we found that crime against women started rising by almost 500 per cent. So we took a decision that if that is the case...we will go for truthful recording of crime. The result is in front of you, said Mr. Bassi while speaking at an interactive session organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) on women safety here.
According to data compiled by police, while 706 case of rapes were reported in the city during 2012, the number more than doubled in 2013 to 1636. So far in the first six months of 2014, 984 cases of rape have been reported against 869 in the same period last year.
Mr. Bassi said that out of the 984 cases reported this year till June 30, 759 have been worked out.
“Almost 71 per cent (546) of them were worked out within one week and almost 87 per cent of cases are solved within two weeks. Most of the cases I monitor myself and I keep on monitoring it till the time it is worked out,” he said.
“When we try to find out if the person was known to the victim, we have seen that the rate is high. Forty five per cent of accused are friends while a similar number is that of relatives...Strangers are involved in less than 5-6 per cent of cases. Nearly 82 per cent rapes take place in house/premises,” he said.
The total number of all IPC cases reported in Delhi till June 30 stands at 71,523 this year which is more than double of 33,797 cases reported in the same period last year.
Mr. Bassi attributed the rise in crime statistics to effective registration of cases.
Talking about other lessons of the December 16 gangrape, the Delhi Police Commissioner said that there has been increased attention on crime against women and it was realized that there was an extreme shortage of women police officers in the force.
