The spurt in violent crimes in Assam during the last three years has turned the heat on the Sarbananda Sonowal-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s claims on law and order situation in the state.
According to a latest National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB) report, Assam has recorded a total of 1, 23,512 violent crimes in 2019.
The state had recorded 1, 04,324 cognizable crime cases in 2017 and 1, 12,233 cases in 2018, said Crimes in India 2019, a three-volume report released by the NCRB.
Compared to Assam, the rest of Northeast has a relatively low crime rate.
Arunachal Pradesh has recorded 2,590 cases in 2019, Manipur (2,830), Meghalaya (3,125), Mizoram (2,139), Nagaland (1,117) and Tripura (5,336).
At the national level, a total of 51,56,172 cognizable crimes comprising 32,25,701 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 19,30,471 Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes were registered in 2019. It shows an increase of 1.6 per cent in registration of cases over 2018 (50,74,635 cases).
During 2019, registration of cases under IPC has increased by 3.0 per cent whereas SLL crimes have declined marginally by 0.6 per cent over 2018.
Percentage share of IPC cases was 62.6 per cent, while the percentage share of SLL cases was 37.4 per cent of total cognizable crimes during 2019.
A total of 28,918 cases of murder were registered during 2019, showing a marginal decrease of 0.3 per cent over 2018 (29,017 cases).
As for kidnapping and abduction, a total of 1,05,037 cases of kidnapping and abduction were registered during 2019, showing a marginal decrease of 0.7 per cent over 2018 (1,05,734 cases).
Significantly, crime against women has shown an increase.
A total of 4,05,861 cases of crime against women were registered during 2019, showing an increase of 7.3 per cent over 2018 (3,78,236 cases).
Majority of cases under crime against women under IPC were registered under ‘Cruelty by Husband or his Relatives’ (30.9 per cent) followed by ‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ (21.8 per cent), ‘Kidnapping and Abduction of Women’ (17.9 per cent) and ‘Rape’ (7.9 per cent).
The crime rate registered per lakh women population is 62.4 in 2019 in comparison with 58.8 in 2018.
Meanwhile, a total of 1,48,185 cases of crime against children were registered during 2019, showing an increase of 4.5 per cent over 2018 (1,41,764 cases).
In percentage terms, major crime heads under ‘Crime Against Children’ during 2019 were kidnapping and abduction (46.6 per cent) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (35.3 per cent) including child rape.
The crime rate registered per lakh children population is 33.2 in 2019 in comparison with 31.8 in 2018.
Crime against Senior Citizens is also on the rise. A total of 27,696 cases were registered for committing crime against senior citizens (aged above 60 years), showing an increase of 13.7 per cent in registration over 2018 (24,349 cases).