Andhra most unsafe for women in South
NEW DELHI: Going by the number of cases of crimes against women, Andhra Pradesh has emerged as the most unsafe place among the four South Indian states, according to data collated by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Andhra Pradesh fared the worst on incidents of rape and sexual offences on all aspects including number of cases reported and number of persons arrested, charge-sheeted and convicted.
In fact, the State has more than double the number of cases registered when compared to the other three states. And this has been so in the past three years consecutively (2008-2010). For example, AP has had 1,257, 1,189 and 1,362 cases of rape registered in the past three years each, while in the other states, the number was about 500.
The number of cases charge-sheeted and the conviction rates under rape category in Andhra are also double that of other states.
Similarly, sexual harassment cases are also highest in AP. If there were 4,562 cases of sexual harassment in AP last year, the figure was 83 for Karnataka, 537 for Kerala and 638 for Tamil Nadu.
The safest place for women, according to NCRB data, is Karnataka, which reported the least number of cases in both categories of rape and sexual harassment.
Arpana Popat of Centre for Women Development, however, says it is too sweeping to say that women are safer in Karnataka because the NCRB data says so. “It could also be a case of under reporting,” she pointed out.