Dip in crimes against women cases in J&K

Srinagar: There is some good news from Jammu and Kashmir, at last. The crime against women in the state has decreased as less number of incidents of violence against the fair sex was reported during 2016 as compared to the previous year.

In 2015, as many as 3,539 cases of incidents related to crime against women were registered by the police. But in 2016, the number stood at 2,920, says the annual edition of crime gazette for the year 2016 released by J&K’s director general of police, Shesh Paul Vaid, here on Wednesday.

Likewise, less number of abductions took place in 2016. During the year only 805 cases of abduction of women were reported as compared to 1,152 in 2015. As far as the incidence of rape, 275 cases were reported in 2016 as compared to 315 during the previous year. Similarly there has been decrease in eve-teasing cases from 215 in 2015 to 157 in 2016. Molestation cases too have dropped to 1,233 in 2016 from 1,342 reported in 2015. The gazette, however, says that there has been an overall increase of 391 cases registered by the police under local and special laws. While 2,118 such cases were reported in 2016, the number stood at 1,727 in the year 2015. “This is due to the police initiation of taking preventive action,” the report says.

It also speaks about “increased trend” in the registration of crime cases and says that 26,548 cases were got registered in 2016 as compared to 25, 269 in 2015. “The increase of 1, 279 cases in the year 2016 which is 9.5 percent was due to hassle free registration of cases,” IGP (crime) Alok Puri said.

He said that, however, there has also been decreasing trend in the disposal of cases by J&K police as only 23,692 cases were disposed of by the police as compared to 26, 891 in 2015, which shows a decrease of 8.8 per cent (3,199 cases).

Yet the recovery percentage of stolen property during 2016 has increased by 5.88 percent. It was 37.61 percent in 2015 and 43.49 percent in 2016 and included motor vehicle thefts.

The data for the gazette has been collected, tabulated and maintained by Crime Record Bureau, the officials said. The Police Chief Vaid while addressing the officers on the occasion said that there is an urgent need for creation of a section exclusively devoted to research and development needs of the police department. “There is a need to reorient some sections of the department so as to provide better service to the people,” he said.