Crimes in India in 2016 Increased 2.6 Percent: NCRB

Major crimes like rape, kidnappings and abduction, crime against women and crime against children increased across the country by 2.6 per cent in 2016 over the previous year, the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) said in its latest report on Thursday.

The annual publication of NCRB released by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said a total of 48,31,515 "congnizable" crimes were reported in 2016, showing an increase of 2.6 per cent, over the 47,10,676 cases reported in 2015. 

Of the total crimes, 29,75,711 are those registered under Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 18,55,804 under Special and Local Laws (SLL), the NCRB data said. 

According to the data, the IPC crimes have increased by 0.9 per cent (from 29,49,400 in 2015 to 29,75,711 in 2016) while SLL crimes increased by 5.4 per cent (from 17,61,276 in 2015 to 18,55,804 in 2016). 

Uttar Pradesh accounted for 9.5 per cent of total IPC crimes reported in the country followed by Madhya Pradesh (8.9 per cent), Maharashtra (8.8 per cent) and Kerala (8.7 per cent). 

Delhi reported the highest crime rate under the IPC crimes followed by Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, the report said, adding a total of 37,37,870 persons were arrested, 32,71,262 chargesheeted, 7,94,616 convicted and 11,48,824 were acquitted in 2016. 

Cases of cyber crime, rape, crime against woman, crime against children, kidnapping and abduction, crime against Scheduled Castes (SCs)/Scheduled Tribes (STs) showed an increasing trend while cases of murder, rioting, robbery and dacoity decreased in 2016, said the NCRB report.

Cyber crime has shown 6.3 per cent increase (from 11,592 cases in 2015 to 12,317 in 2016), rape 12.4 per cent (from 34,651 cases in 2015 to 38,947 in 2016), kidnapping and abduction 6 per cent (from 82,999 cases in 2015 to 88,008 in 2016) while crime against children - comprising cases of kidnapping and abduction, and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO)- showed increasing trend over the past three years with the significant increase of 13.6 per cent (from 94,172 cases in 2015 to 1,06,958 in 2016). 

Crime against women saw an increase of 2.9 per cent from 3,29,243 cases in 2015 to 3,38,954 in 2016 while crime against SCs increased 5.5 per cent (from 38,670 cases in 2015 to 40,801 in 2016) and crime against STs by 4.7 per cent (from 6,276 cases from 2015 to 6,568 in 2016).

Murder decreased by 5.2 per cent (from 32,127 cases in 2015 to 30,450 in 2016), rioting 5 per cent (from 65,255 cases in 2015 to 61,974 in 2016 ), dacoity 4.5 per cent (from 3,972 cases in 2015 to 3,795 in 2016) and robbery 11.8 per cent (from 36,188 cases in 2015 to 31,906 in 2016).

The NCRB said that 19 metropolitan cities have been included in the chapters on violent crimes, crime against women, crime against children, juveniles in conflict with law, crime against SC/STs, economic crimes, cyber crimes, crime against senior citizens and disposal of cases by police and court for the first time in its latest publication covering 2 million population. 

A new chapter on missing persons and children has been included to comply the Supreme Court directions along with a new table on cases related to Fake Indian Currency Notes, the NCRB report said. 

The NCRB report also first time included the statistics on the seizures of arms, ammunitions, drugs and currency by central armed police forces - the CISF, the BSF, the CRPF, the SSB, the Assam Rifles - and central police organisations like the National Investigation Agency.