Crime in India 2020 report by NCRB – Burning Issues

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NCRB crime report

The National Crime Records Bureau, abbreviated to NCRB, is an Indian government agency responsible for collecting and analysing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) .

NCRB is headquartered in New Delhi and is part of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India.

NCRB brings out three annual reports i.e. Crime in India, Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India and Prison Statistics India. These reports are principal reference points for police officers, researchers, media & policy makers.

India has recorded an average of 80 murders and 77 rape cases daily in 2020, National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) report revealed.
With an average of 80 murders daily in 2020, India reported a total of 29,193 fatalities in 2020 with Uttar Pradesh topping the chart among states.
The country witnessed a total of 29,193 fatalities with Uttar Pradesh accounting for maximum murders with 3779 such cases. UP was followed by Bihar with 3,150 murders, Maharashtra (2,163), Madhya Pradesh (2,101) and West Bengal (1,948). Delhi logged 472 murder cases in 2020.
Compared to 2019 that saw 28,915 murders with a daily average of 79 killings, 2020 marked a marginal decrease of 1 per cent.
There were a total of 84,805 lodged cases of kidnapping and abduction in 2020 as against 1,05,036 in 2019, according to the NCRB report.
Among states, the maximum 12,913 kidnapping and abductions cases in 2020 were lodged in Uttar Pradesh followed by West Bengal (9,309), Maharashtra (8,103), Bihar (7,889) and Madhya Pradesh (7,320), the data showed.
Rajasthan recorded the highest number of rape cases in 2020 with 5310 such cases, according to data compiled by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
It was followed by Uttar Pradesh with a total of 2769 rape cases having been registered in the same period. Madhya Pradesh with 2,339 and Maharashtra with 2,061 rape cases accounted for the third and fourth highest number of such cases.
Although Rajasthan had the poorest track record among the states in terms of rape cases, the state saw a decline of about 16 per cent in overall crime against women. The state witnessed 34,535 such cases.
Uttar Pradesh had the worst figures in terms of overall crimes against women with 49,835 such cases being recorded.
Despite the COVID-19 lockdowns , the nation’s crime rate rose markedly from 2019 to 487.8 per lakh of population compared to 385.5 recorded in the previous year – an increase of 28 per cent, according to newly released data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Most responsible for the rise in crime were those relating to disobedience to order which rose by a staggering 21 times from 2019. Given that the majority of such violations were related to breaches of COVID-19 protocols, this figure may not be all that surprising.
There is also the fall in the rate of crimes against women in cities. The NCRB data showed that, for the year 2020, the number of crimes against women dipped by 8.3 per cent compared to 2019.
371,503 cases of crime against women were reported in 2020, down significantly from 405,326 in the previous year.

The pinch of salt

The sudden lockdown announced in late March 2020 immediately prompted grave concerns around escalating rates of domestic violence. Restrictions on mobility and an inability for women to leave their homes and seek out safe havens led to anticipation that crimes against women would rise rather than fall, as indicated in the NCRB’s latest data.
And a closer look at data shared by the National Commission for Women (NCW) does indeed reveal a tale starkly different from the NCRB’s findings. The NCW reported that between February 27 and May 31, 2020, cases of domestic violence exhibited a 2.5-fold increase with 1,477 domestic violence complaints lodged.
Additionally, in the months of April and May, nearly 50 per cent of cases the NCW received were related to domestic violence. This represented a remarkable spike from the period between January and March 2020 when just 20.6 per cent of cases received were related to domestic violence.
The number of complaints received between March and May last year, the NCW noted, was also the highest seen in the same period across the last decade.
Delhi had the highest complaint rate with roughly 32 complaints received per 1 million women. Meanwhile, UP recorded the highest number of complaints among all states.
The NCW’s findings fly directly in the face of the latest NCRB data and suggest that the impact of the lockdowns on women were as dire, if not worse than originally predicted. An inability to access support systems, either as a consequence of COVID-19 restrictions or poor tech-savviness meant that women were cut off from critical resources needed to report incidences of domestic violence.
As restrictions were relaxed, reports from various rights organisations show that women began coming forward in greater numbers to report cases of crime against them.