THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Bollywood action crime flick ‘Gangaajal’ came in 2003, 16 years before Mollywood delivered ‘Uyare’. Though the theme and treatment of both the movies differed, both touched on a much-relevant contemporary bane that has destroyed numerous faces and lives - acid attack. Being 16 years behind Bollywood to latch on the topic, one might suspect that Kerala was slow to catch up with its north Indian counterparts in perpetrating this inhumane, violent assault.
However, statistics speak otherwise. As per the most-recently released data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for the year 2017, Kerala is fourth in the number of acid attacks overtaking some bigger states like Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Kerala witnessed 13 out of 252 acid attack incidents in the country. Uttar Pradesh topped the chart with 60 cases, while West Bengal is just behind with 54. Delhi has 17 cases while Kerala is ignominiously placed fourth along with Odisha.
Unlike Delhi, acid attack cases in Kerala mostly happened in second-tier cities. Kochi and Kozhikode, the two leading cities, did not record a single incident. Out of all the 252 cases, only 34 were recorded in the metro cities while the rest of the offences were registered in the second-tier cities, towns or rural areas. In 2016 also, Kerala registered the same number of cases and was placed fourth in the chart.
Other south Indian states are far behind Kerala when it comes to acid attacks. Only Andhra Pradesh can distantly match Kerala as they had nine cases, while Karnataka and Tamil Nadu registered four and five cases, respectively. Telangana had three cases, while no similar cases were recorded in Lakshadweep and Puducherry, the two union territories.
State Police Chief Loknath Behera said the police take acid attack cases very seriously and are pro-active in registering cases. “In certain states, lots of such incidents get smothered and cases are rarely registered,” he said.
“When such incidents happen, we assign DySPs to investigate the matter and ensure that the accused are successfully prosecuted,” he added.
Behera further said he is mulling over handing the task of monitoring all the acid attack cases to the Women’s Cell SP. “The district police chiefs are dealing with numerous cases. Hence Women Cell SP can monitor the cases better. We want to chargesheet the accused in 10-15 days and finish the trial at the earliest.”