CRIMINAL RECORD

A full year after the data was due, the National Crime Records Bureau finally released, on October 21, its 2017 figures for crimes committed across the country. Critics have accused the government of suppressing the report because of the NCRB’s collection of data under new categories such as ‘mob lynching’ and murders ‘committed for religious reasons’. Adding grist to the critics’ mill, the NCRB has still not published data in these categories, despite media reports that the data has been collected. There is no official explanation for why these numbers have not been released. Last year, then minister of state for home affairs, Hansraj Ahir, told the Rajya Sabha—a day after the Supreme Court suggested that Parliament should legislate to deal more effectively with “horrendous acts of mobocracy”—that the NCRB does not collect data on lynchings.

5,007,044

Cognisable crimes committed across India in 2017, reveals the NCRB data, up 3.6% from 2016. 3.1 million registered under Indian Penal Code

9,013

Offences against the state registered in 2017, up from 6,986 in 2016; 2,576 from Haryana, 2,055 from UP; mostly ‘damage to public property’

359,849

Crimes against women registered in 2017, up from 329,000 in 2016; Uttar Pradesh (56,011), Maharashtra (31,979), West Bengal (30,992) are worst offenders

33.2%

of crimes against women recorded as ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives’, 27.3% ‘assault with intent to outrage modesty’, 21% kidnapping, 10.3% rape

58,880

Incidents of rioting in 2017, down from 61,974 in 2016, but 90,394 riot victims reported in 2017, up from 73,744 in 2016. Most incidents in Bihar: 11,698

723

of these riots recorded as ‘communal’ in 2017, 183 as ‘sectarian’, 805 registered as ‘caste conflict’, 1,909 ‘due to political reasons’

51

Cases of sedition recorded in 2017, up from 35 in 2016; most cases: 19 (Assam), 13 (Haryana); 228 arrested (3 juveniles), 160 chargesheeted, 1 conviction

652

Offences committed by ‘left-wing extremists’ under a new category—‘anti-national elements’; Northeast insurgents 421, terrorists (jihadi/ others) 371

82

People killed by left-wing extremists in 2017, 72 in Chhattisgarh alone; 36 by terrorists (34 in J&K alone), 10 by Northeast insurgents

257

Incidents of spreading fake news registered in 2017, the first time the NCRB has collected such data; 138 in MP, 32 in UP, 18 in Kerala