VIJAYAWADA: Crime against women has seen a staggering rise in Andhra Pradesh as the State has recorded a 43 per cent increase in cases in 2022, compared to 2021, placing Andhra Pradesh in sixth place. According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB), Crime in India-2022 report, which was released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Monday, the State had reported as many as 25,503 cases of crime against women in 2022, against 17,752 in 2021. With atleast 70 cases reported every day, the crimes include dowry deaths, rape, abetment of suicide, atrocities against children, cruelty by husband, sexual harassment and others.
The data also revealed that most of the atrocities against women are due to family disputes as 11,964 cases of the total 25,503 are reported under cruelty by husband and relatives followed by 2,127 POSCO Act cases, rape against majors with 621 cases and outraging modesty and abetment of suicide.
Meanwhile, the State police department stated that the increase in cases does not mean an increase in crimes, but actually it’s a sign that more women are coming forward to file complaints.
“With Disha and dial 100, women are lodging their grievances with police. As a fast response and to ensure safety and deterrence, we are registering cases against the accused immediately to initiate action. Women’s safety is the collective responsibility of everyone in the society,” Director General of Police (DGP) Kasireddy Rajendranath Reddy told TNIE.
On the other hand, the NCRB report stated that Andhra Pradesh has reported an overall 12 per cent less crimes in 2022 with 1,95,284 cases (both IPC and SLL) crimes against 2,22,199 in the previous year.
The cases include bodily offences, road accident cases, cybercrimes, economic offences, violence against senior citizens, crime against women, crime against children, kidnapping and abductions, corruption, environment crimes and others. The data shows that as many as 925 murder cases were reported of which 403 were due to personal disputes and 31 cases had no clues. Also, incidents of kidnapping increased in 2022 with reporting 903 cases against 835 in 2021.
The NCRB also reported that there is an increase in economic offences in the State with more cases of forgery, cheating and fraud. Similarly, there is a rise in cybercrimes by 24 per cent with 2,341 cases in 2022, against 1,875 in 2021. “Lottery scams, fake job offers and OTP frauds continue to increase, despite taking measures,” said NTR district commissioner of police Kanthi Rana Tata. Also, the cases under environment protection law increased by 200 percent with 1,294 cases in previous year against 420 cases in 2021.