CM Manohar Lal Khattar tells Haryana assembly that since 2014, rapes have increased 1.5 times — from 961 cases to 1,413 till date.
Chandigarh: Haryana has registered a sharp increase in crimes against women over the past three years, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar told the state Assembly Tuesday. He was replying to a question posed by Congress MLA from Gohana Jagbir Singh Malik on the second day of the assembly session.
According to Khattar’s reply, the number of rape cases in the state has risen by almost one-and-a-half times since 2014-15. The data shows there were 961 rape cases between September 2014 and August 2015, 1,026 such cases between September 2015 and August 2016, which has now risen to 1,413 from September 2017 to date.
The most stark statistic is the one related to cases of kidnapping of women — the numbers have doubled since September 2014.
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The chief minister’s reply shows that there were 1,644 such cases between September 2014 and August 2015. But since September last year, there have been almost 3,500 such cases to date.
Molestation cases too have increased from 1,833 to 2,320 cases during the same period.
The state has, however, registered a reduction in the number of dowry deaths from 260 in 2014-2015 to 202 since September 2017. Similarly, there has been a reduction in dowry harassment cases from 3,400 to 2,900 during this period.
The BJP-led Khattar government had come to power in the state in October 2014.
The ‘rape’ capital
Haryana has among the worst records in crimes against women, with the state having earned the dubious reputation of being the gang rape capital of India.
Earlier this year, the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) had shown that Haryana registered a 1.5 gang rape rate (gang rape per one lakh population), which is highest in the country. The national average is .3 per cent. A total of 191 gang rapes took place in Haryana in 2016, almost one every two days.
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The report added that the total number of rapes in the state last year numbered 1,187, which amounts to three rapes a day. The rape rate (number of rapes per one lakh population) in Haryana is 9.4 while the national average is 6.1.
In 2014, when the NCRB added gang-rapes as a separate sub-category in the list of rapes, Haryana recorded the highest gang-rape rate in the country at 1.9 — the national average that year was 0.4.
In 2015 too, Haryana topped the gang rape rate of 1.6 when the national average was .3.