NEW DELHI: The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in its latest report has revealed that the country recorded 58.85 lakh crimes in 2024, which is six percent down from 2023 when 62.41 lakh cases were reported.
According to latest figures released on Wednesday by the NCRB under the head - Crime in India 2024, the rate of such incidents, which is a measure of cases registered per lakh population, also dropped from 448.3 in 2023 to 418.9 in 2024.
Cases registered under the ‘Hurt’ category registered under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 325, 326 and 329-335 saw a major decline, 30.58 percent, from over 6.36 lakh cases in 2023 to over 4.41 lakh cases in 2024, the data showed.
The report, however, clarified that the dip in cases of ‘Hurt or Grievous Hurt’ may be attributed to the changes in Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) introduced in 2023, which replaced the Indian Penal Code, where these sections had been merged and simple ‘Hurt’ being made a non-cognisable offence.
During the year, a total of 27,049 cases of murder were registered, showing a marginal decline of 2.4 per cent over the previous year, with ‘disputes’ being the leading motive behind the crimes, followed by ‘personal vendetta or enmity’ and ‘gain’, the NCRB said in the report.
‘Crime against women’ showed a dip of 1.5 percent from the previous year, with 4.41 lakh cases lodged in 2024 as compared to 4.48 lakh the previous year. ‘Cruelty by husband or relatives’ was the leading cause of such crimes, followed by kidnapping, crime against minors, assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty, the data revealed.
“The crime rate registered per lakh women population was 64.6 in 2024 in comparison with 66.2 in 2023,” the report said.
The report also revealed that a total of 55,698 cases were registered for crimes against Scheduled Castes (SCs), showing a decrease of 3.6 percent over 2023, when 57,789 cases were registered.
Crimes against Scheduled Tribes also showed a sharp decline of 23.1 per cent, with a total of 9,966 cases in 2024, as compared to 12,960 cases in 2023.
In case of crime against, the state wise data revealed that the highest 66,398 such incidences were reported from Uttar Pradesh, which is marginally up from 66,381 in 2023, and the second highest was reported from Maharashtra, where 47,954 cases of crime against women were reported, which up by 853 such cases.
West Bengal, where the assembly elections were just concluded and the ruling TMC led by Mamata Banerjee has been trounced by the BJP with women safety in the state as one of the major poll planks, recorded the third highest 34,360 such incidences in 2024, which actually dropped from 34,691 reported in 2023.
Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh reported to be safer for women among the states with incidences of crime against women reported to be 56, 131and 321 respectively. In case of Arunachal Pradesh such crimes decreased by five in numbers, whereas Nagaland reported no change from its 2023 reporting. But Sikkim reported a decrease of three such cases.