Crimes against women dip by 24%, cybercrimes see 55% rise: NCRB data

‘967 rape cases were reported in 2020 as opposed to 1,231 in 2019’

A protest against the alleged rape and murder of a girl in Delhi.

Crime against women in the Capital has reduced by 24% in 2020 as compared to 2019, shows the data shared by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

According to it, total crime against women reported in 2020 came down to 9,782 incidents from 12,902 in 2019. Assault on women stood at 938 in 2020 as opposed to 1,088 in 2019 and sexual harassment stood at 862 cases in 2020 as compared to 644 in 2020. A total of 967 rape cases were reported in 2020 as opposed to 1,231 in 2019, leading to a decrease of 21%. Stalking also saw a dip of 40% as 235 cases were reported in 2020 as opposed to 388 in the preceding year.

Overall slump

Across the 19 metropolitan cities, NCRB stated that a total of 35,331 cases of crime against women were registered during 2020, showing a decrease of 21.1% over 2019 (44,783 cases). Majority of crime against women were registered under ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives’ (30.2%) followed by ‘assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty’ (19.7%), ‘kidnapping and abduction of women’ (19.0%) and ‘rape’ (7.2%).

Cybercrimes reported in the Capital saw an increase of 55% in 2020 as compared to 2019, the data showed. A total of 166 cases were reported in 2020 as compared to 107 in 2019.

Stalking, online fraud

According to the data, cases pertaining to transmitting of sexually explicit act and material accounted for 19 cases in 2019, which increased to 59 in 2020. Cyber fraud increased to 31 from 11 while cyber stalking came down from 16 to 12. Online bank fraud cases also increased to 19 in 2020 from merely two cases in the year before that.

Across metropolitan cities, a total of 18,657 cases have been registered under cybercrimes, showing an increase of 0.8% over 2019 (18,500 cases). Cyber crime rate also increased from 16.2 in 2019 to 16.4 in 2020. Crime head-wise cases revealed that computer-related offences (Section 66 of IT Act) formed the highest number of cybercrimes, accounting for 60.9% (11,356 cases) during 2020.

A senior police officer said that the reason for increase in cybercrimes in 2020 could be COVID-19 induced lockdown, due to which cybercriminals found novel ways to cheat people.