NEW DELHI: It was midnight of June 27 when the hapless parents of a missing 10-year-old girl dialed the cops of Narela Police Station and reported her disappearance.
They even intimated about a suspect, who was last seen with their daughter and had been already caught. The police rushed to the spot and questioned the suspect named Rahul. Shortly after the PCR call, the dead body of a girl was discovered in an abandoned plot, close to the complainant's house.
The victim girl's head was mutilated beyond recognition, but the clothes helped to confirm that it was the same girl who was reported missing.
The cops took Rahul into custody. After sustained questioning, he broke down and confessed to sexually assaulting and murdering the girl child along with one more person named Devdutt. Both of them were arrested and charged with kidnapping, gangrape, and murder but a happy family of four was decimated.
It was not an isolated case. Just a fortnight back, a 4-year-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered by her 35-year-old uncle in north Delhi's Narela area who then dumped her body in the forest area near Tikri village and fled the city. He was later nabbed from his native village in Uttar Pradesh.
Even as tougher laws have been implemented along with proactive policing, Delhi continues to report cases of crime against women on a daily basis putting a serious question mark on the safety and security of women in the national capital.
As per data compiled by the Delhi Police, which was exclusively accessed by The New Indian Express, 1040 cases of rape have been registered till June 30, this year. In the corresponding period of last year, 1034 women were allegedly sexually assaulted.
Senior police officers told this newspaper that proactive initiatives and fair registration have contributed to more robust reporting of crime against women. However, the percentage of worked-out cases have also increased with time, as absconding accused are also arrested.
After June, the government implemented the three new criminal laws, with a promise to completely overhaul the country’s criminal justice system. One of them was the inclusion of section 69 under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita which punished people who commit sexual intercourse by deceitful means like false promises of marriage, employment, or promotion, and identity suppression. The offenders, under this section of the law, face up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine. The police have already registered three such cases in July this year.
Violence and abuse against women and children have become frequent occurrences on streets, in public transportation and in other public places. Such occurrences restrict women’s right to mobility, discouraging their freedom to walk freely and move in public spaces of their choice. Such violence also limits their access to essential services and adversely impact their health and wellbeing.
The police have registered 1149 cases till July 31 where a woman's modesty was outraged by multiple means, a crime that comes under sections 74 to 78 of the BNS. Earlier such crimes were punished under IPC section 354.
To prevent heinous crimes from taking place, the measures adopted by Delhi Police include night patrolling, mobile women police team, presence of women in PCR vans, and deployment of women cops around girls' colleges and schools, etc.