There has been an increase in the number of rape cases against women and children by friends made on social media on the promise of marrying them, says the Annual Police Report of 2021.
The report points out, “In 2019, there were 207 rape cases against major and 332 against minors; in 2020, there were 173 cases against major and 225 against minors and in 2021, there were 271 cases against major and 299 against minors.”
The second highest category of rape was committed by servants, drivers, gardeners etc, with 2021 recording 28 such cases against women and 58 against children.
Talking about steps taken to ensure prevention of crime against women, Commissioner of Police Hemant Nagrale said, “Each police station has one Nirbhaya Squad that works in two shifts and has two women constables and two male constables in civil dress driving all around the city to prevent crimes against women.”
The Mumbai Police Annual Press Conference – 2021 was chaired by Mr. Nagrale along with Joint Commissioners of crime, law and order, economic offences wing, traffic and admin.
As per the report, there has also been an increase in cyber crime in the maximum city with 2,883 registered cases in 2021 but only 455 were detected and 2,435 registered cases of which 207 were detected in 2020.
Citing reasons for low detection in cyber crime cases, Mr. Nagrale said, “These are faceless crimes with the accused operating from other States, their servers are out of India, they use masking techniques and social media intermediaries don’t respond in a time–bound manner. We added five new cyber crime police stations in 2021.”
Joint Commissioner (Crime) Milind Bharambe said, “We will be spending around ₹20 crore to upgrade our tools to tackle cyber crimes cases.”
Mr. Nagrale also said 8,747 of the 46,212 sanctioned posts in Mumbai police are vacant.
