BHUBANESWAR: Every day, at least seven women/minor girls are raped in the State. That is what the White Paper on Crime released by Home Department says.
There has been a spurt in rape cases as the numbers have increased to 2,502 in 2018 from 2,221 in 2017. The document says the more number of victims have filed complaints due to the rise in awareness.
However, the growing incidence comes in the face of a bouquet of schemes being rolled out to arrest the trend. The Odisha Police had organised “Paree Paien Kathatiye” campaign in technical collaboration with Unicef last year to sensitise the general public against sexual harassment of minor girls.
About 15 vehicles decorated as “Paree Express” moved throughout the State for 15 days covering a distance of more than 44,707 km. During the campaign, 1,377 venues were covered and about 12 lakh people participated.
However, the campaign and such other soft measures initiated by police seem to have little impact as a series of such cases continued to be reported this year.
The White Paper also pointed at an increase in crime including murder, dacoity, robbery and theft. As many as 1,07,408 cognisable cases were reported last year as against 1,03,866 in 2017. While murder cases increased to 1,378 from 1,267 in 2017, dacoity went up to 558 from 534. Similarly, robbery increased to 2,125 from 2,048 in 2017.
Of the total cognisable cases registered during 2018, as many as 1,03,858 were designated as “true cases” whereas charge sheets could be submitted in only in 69,341 cases. Out of the 1,310 true cases of murder, charge sheet was submitted in 645 cases.