CHENNAI: Forget strangers, your child is at a greater risk of being sexually assaulted by persons known to your family, neighbours and close relatives including grandfathers and brothers.
The National Crime Records Bureau data for 2015 reveals that about 95 per cent of offenders in raping minors were known to the victims. In fact, all the cases fell in this category in nine States and Union Territories, while it was 99 per cent in four other States.
According to the data, neighbours were the accused in most number of child rape cases — 37.78 per cent. Family members including relatives (6.60 per cent), close relatives (2.38 per cent) and grandfathers, fathers and brothers (1.56 per cent) accounted for over 10 per cent of the cases in this shame list.
Employers and co-workers (presumably of the parents or other family members) and other known persons form the rest. And only 5.20 per cent rape cases by offenders unidentified by the victims were reported.
Uttar Pradesh recorded the maximum number of child rape cases with 1,440, while States including Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir recorded not even one case. The other curious cases are that of Maharashtra (3), Odisha (2) and Bihar (42) that showed an unusually low number of child rape cases.
According to the NCRB date, in Karnataka, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu, the number of child rape cases are higher than the number of adult rape cases. In Sikkim, for instance, the number of adult rapes are only five but the number of child rapes are 39. Puducherry recorded just three adult rape cases against 27 child rape cases. Similar is the case of the union territory of D&N Haveli.
In Karnataka, child rape cases (1073) are double the number of adult rape cases (589). In Tamil Nadu, the child rape cases (1073) are 2.5 times the number of adult rape cases (421).