NEW DELHI: Just a couple of months ago, a 30-year-old Swiss woman, Nina Berger, was allegedly strangled to death. Her hands and legs were tied with a metal chain, and later, her body was dumped alongside a road near a school in west Delhi’s Tilak Nagar area, wrapped inside a black plastic bag.
For this horrific crime, the police arrested a 30-year-old man named Gurpreet, a resident of Janakpuri in west Delhi, who claimed himself to be a jilted lover of the Swiss national. It was a brutal case of murder in Delhi involving a foreign national, and such incidents particularly tarnish the image of the country.
According to data shared by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the national capital saw nearly a 50% rise in crimes committed against foreign nationals during the year 2022. At the same time, there was a significant drop in the number of cases where the accused were foreigners.
There were 40 instances of crimes against foreigners last year, compared to 27 in the corresponding previous year. However, in the same year, the total crimes committed by foreign nationals were 256, much less than the 322 reported in 2021.
As per NCRB, there were 23 foreign victims of human trafficking, 23 victims of cheating, 13 women assaulted with the intent to outrage their modesty, 7 kidnapped, and an equal number robbed. Most of the cases registered were under theft (34).
Shockingly, as many as 30 foreign women were sexually assaulted in India during 2022. Officials say that every foreigner visiting the capital must report immediately to the nearest police station if they face any kind of crime.
“It is important for them to keep emergency and distress numbers handy,” the official said. As per NCRB, pan-India, a total of 192 cases were registered for crimes against foreigners (tourists and residents) as compared to 150 cases in 2021, showing an increase of 28%. Out of the 222 victims in the 192 registered cases, 56.8% were from the Asia (126), followed by 18.0% of victims from African countries (40).