Triple trouble: slow trial, low conviction rate, under-reporting

Fifteen. That’s the number of cases decided out of the 312 registered under the Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act in the Capital since 2013. And even among those the conviction rate is as low as 20 per cent.

A look at the statistics provided by the Delhi Police reveals that the verdict of only 10 out of the 136 POCSO cases registered in 2013 has been decided so far and eight of them ended in acquittals for the accused. While the registrations fell in the subsequent year (107), the conviction rate of 20 per cent (1 out of the 5 decided cases) remained unmoved.

Till September 30, a total 69 cases under the special act were registered in the Capital.

The year by year numbers may show a declining trend but concerns about under reporting remains, as many of children are targeted by family members or close relatives, say experts. Recent cases -- in Keshav Puram, Ranhola, Anand Vihar and Najafgarh, all reported this month -- have again sparked a debate on safety for children in the Capital.

But even if one is to look beyond numbers certain trends are surprising. For instance, these figures shared by the Delhi Police show not a single POCSO case being registered in North East Delhi district, a trans-Yamuna area with a massive slum population, in 2013.

While there is little empirical data or case studies available to prove that this astonishing figure was the result of under or non-reporting of such incidents in slums or the non-application of the concerned provision by the police even when an incident merited its usage, it is pertinent to mention some of the facts mentioned in a report carried out by The Hindu last year.

Analysing trial court judgements, the report titled The many shades of rape cases in Delhi said that men preying on young children in slums was the one of the most common type of offence as far as sexual crimes committed in the Capital by strangers was concerned.

Investigators to whom we spoke while analysing the numbers also agreed that slum children were particularly vulnerable and even expressed surprise at what they called a “discrepancy” between the ground reality and statistics.

The trends within Delhi show South district topping the charts for the past two years with as many as 39 and 38 cases registered in 2014 and 2013 respectively.

This seems to have somewhat reversed a bit in the ongoing year with South West district, which was on the second position in the previous years, registering nearly twice that of South till September end (28 versus 13).

If one is to look beyond POCSO and compare the overall CAC figures in 2014 and 2009 i.e. five years ago the rate of growth of these crimes is marginally below the national average.

While 89,423 cases were registered overall in 2014 compared to the 24,201 such cases registered in 2009 (a growth of 3.7 times), the city recorded corresponding figures of 9350 and 2839 cases in 2009 (up 3.3 times).