Parliamentary panel raps UP government over rising crime against women and children

New Delhi: The parliamentary panel on home affairs pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday over increasing cases of crime against women and children as the state reported another case of sexual assault, in which a 50-year-old woman was gangraped and killed in Budaun.
The panel, headed by Congress leader Anand Sharma, contested the data on crime provided by the state police which claimed that cases of crime against the vulnerable sections of society were declining.

Besides UP, Rajasthan and Haryana were summoned by the panel to discuss the issue of women’s safety. However, Haryana skipped the hearing and informed the panel that its officials would appear at a later date. Union home ministry officials attended the presentation but the absence of senior officials during the meeting drew sharp reactions from the senior parliamentarians.


“Officials from the UP government submitted that crimes against women and children have declined in the past few years. On this, the members rebutted the officials and quoted the actual crime figures available with the House panel,” a member of the panel told ET on condition of anonymity after the meeting. “We told them that they were misleading the committee and not following the summons by the House. UP is among the states with the highest number of cases against women and other vulnerable sections of society.”

In the case of Rajasthan, the panel expressed concern over the low rate of convictions amid increasing rape cases. The state government informed the panel that it has taken measures to identify the culprits and fast-track trials in heinous cases such as rape and child rape.

At the national level, the crime rate registered per 100,000 women population stood at 62.4 in 2019, up from 58.8 in 2018. As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), rape cases against Scheduled Castes increased 7.6% year-on-year to 3,486 cases in 2019. UP recorded the highest cases of atrocities against SCs and Scheduled Tribes (11,829) and crimes against women (59,853) while Assam (177.8) and Rajasthan (55.6) reported the highest rate of crimes per 100,000 population against women and SC/ST respectively.
Further, the panel hauled up the UP government over its claims of creating safe cities including capital Lucknow. The members indicated that in the majority of cases the police did not bother to register cases to keep the crime rate down. The safe city project is a mission mode initiative of the Union home ministry under the Nirbhaya Fund. Besides Lucknow, seven other cities across the country have been identified for implementation of the project in the first phase, at an estimated cost of ₹2,919.55 crore – Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.