Every time a rape happens in Delhi, the rest of the country thinks that’s not happening in our city. We Mumbaikars pride ourselves on how safe Mumbai’s public places are compared to Delhi; how we can return home from work or an evening out with friends, alone at 11 pm and still be perfectly safe. Maybe many of us are, but this new statistic provides a disturbing contradiction to what we see around us.
Rape cases in Mumbai went up by a shocking 49 per cent in 2014-15 as against the previous year, and instances of molestation were up 39 per cent, reported the Times of India. And this comes from a white paper report put out by NGO Praja on Tuesday.
In four years since 2010-11, the city has seen reported rape cases jump up by 290 per cent and molestation cases have risen by 247 per cent. Now, every time facts like these come up, the police are quick to defend saying that more and more people report crimes these days, hence the higher rate.
And that is partly true as well. The figures – 165 rape cases in 2010-11 to 643 in 2014-15 – can be attributed to some extent to more women coming out to report crimes against them, but the almost 50 per cent jump within a year is a statement of how unsafe Mumbai has become.
As if that wasn’t scary enough, the conviction rate for these cases in Mumbai is so low – only 27% in 2014 – that it should be giving people nightmares. Really. It basically means that of the 643 cases registered last year, there are at least 470 cases which are pending, or the case has had no progress, and in many cases, the accused is absconding.
“The conviction rates in Mumbai used to be high three decades ago when the prosecution and the investigators used to be a part of the same agency. Now, interaction and co-ordination between the two have deteriorated,” said Nitai Mehta, founder and managing trustee of Praja, in an interview with TOI. “If conviction rates are dipping, the state needs to study why and take measures. Strengthen – and where necessary create – infrastructure for continuous training, forensic labs, crime mapping and crime forecasting,” he added.
And that’s not all. A study on how cases of serious crimes move in the sessions court revealed that it takes seven months, on an average, for a chargesheet in a rape case to be filed from the date the FIR is registered!
“Of the 138 rape cases that were part of the study, 116 turned out to be acquittals. We went through each judgment and looked at the last few paragraphs of the copy for reasons of acquittal. In 105 cases, judges mentioned ‘failure to prove charges’ to be the reason. This means that either the quality of investigation was not up to mark or the prosecution had failed in its job,” said Milind Mhaske, Praja project director. This study was conducted by Praja along with the Pravin Gandhi Law College between January 2008 and December 2012.
