Delhi continues to climb the charts of crime even today. In the last two months, the crime graph of Delhi has shown a steep rise. Crimes against women have increased by almost 50 per cent.
According to data of Delhi Police, in the last two months seven rape cases, 16 molestation cases and about two murders were registered.
As usual, every time crime rates rise, the police claim that these figures are an indication that every case is getting registered.
“These figures clearly show that Delhi Police are doing truthful registration and we are registering every case, which needs to be registered,” Delhi Police Public Relations Officer Rajan Bhagat told Mail Today.
Until May 31, Delhi Police registered 820 cases of rape in various police stations across the capital. But in the last two months this figure shot up by 50 per cent and touched the 1,222 mark till July 31. What’s more, in the last two months, one woman was molested every two hours.
Last year, Delhi witnessed an alarming increase of 99.22 per cent in crime in the year of 2014 over the previous year, which included an 18.3 percent rise in crimes against women. But even at that time, the police chief said this was because his force was now registering every case.
Clearly, governments may come and go, but some other things never seem to change – and that’s the condition of women.
But there are other types of scary statistics too, the kind that is hardly ever mentioned while talking about rape. Each time we think of rape, we all have this mental image of this menacing stranger, stalking, lurking, forcefully subjugating the woman in question and inflicting nameless horrors upon her.
But if last year’s data by the NCRB is anything to go by, it goes to show that of the 2,069 cases of rape registered in 2014, only 84 were committed by strangers. The rest were people known to the victims -neighbours, relatives, family friends, employers, co-workers – danger to a woman exists in every form.
Safety measures in public places is fine and necessary too. But unless we keep in mind these sexual assault episodes by known people, we can’t find a solution to this.
We need simultaneous change in perception of woman, the general misogynistic culture. Most of all, we need CONSTANT VIGILANCE. Vigilance on the part of parents towards their children, teaching them good touch and bad touch and what to do in such a situation, and vigilance by women looking out for themselves. Because it’s all very well to point fingers at the police. And although the police have been inadequate so far, the only way to deal with it is to protect and equip ourselves.
Image Courtesy: BCCL
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