Kids not safe in dark, dingy lanes
NEW DELHI: A narrow pathway with drains flowing on each side - a visible breeding ground for mosquitoes - bends into a narrower bylane with no streetlights, dingy and filthy corners.
Scores of relatives, neighbours, well-wishers and media persons crowd the one room tenement where the parents and grandmother of the two-and-ahalf-year old girl stay.
The area in the last one year has witnessed several cases of rape, molestation and eve-teasing. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data there has been a more than 100 per cent increase in the number of rapes of minors in Delhi in the last three years.
In 2012, 415 cases of minors being raped were reported in the Capital which went up to 757 in 2013 and 1,004 cases in 2014.
The most vulnerable areas were the slums and neighborhoods housing workers.
“Most people in these areas are migrants and are living away from their families. They have no sense of identity because SENIOR POLICE OFFICER of which they commit such crimes,” a senior police officer said. “In most of these areas there are infrastructural problems that make women and children more vulnerable to such crimes. Most of these areas are poorly lit and there is no facility of sanitation inside their households which make these areas more crime prone,” he said.
Sita is seven years old but she knows she does not have to step out of the house after it gets dark. The incident of the minor getting raped has further strengthened her fear.
“She just came out of the house for two minutes to go to the ground which is just a few metres away and she was abducted, how can I think of stepping out at night. The men drink and roam around on the roads. They shout and create a ruckus. It is dangerous to step out,” she said.
“This incident happened when the Ramlila ground was full of people and everyone was outside on the road. Here it just takes a 10 minute power cut to ruin someone’s life. We are better inside our houses,” she said.
Most people in these areas are migrants and are living away from their families. They have no sense of identity because of which they commit such crimes.