West Bengal has earned a dubious distinction of topping the chart for crimes against women in India. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicted the state of perpetrating 30,942 crime incidents against women during 2012. The report drew widespread attention as the state is ruled by a female chief minister who was catapulted to the Writers’ buildings on ‘poll cry of Maa, Mati ,Manush’. The NCRB released the all India crime chart today which noted that 30,942 incidents of crimes against women were reported in 2012, the highest in the country. West Bengal accounted for 12.67 per cent of the total crimes committed against women in the country, ahead of Andhra Pradesh (28,171) and Uttar Pradesh (23, 569). In this instance, Kolkata stands third, behind Delhi and Bangalore. What is disturbing is that in rape crimes, West Bengal has registered as many as 2000 cases in 2012 alone.
However, the state police didn’t agree with the NCRB observation on crime in the state. The director general of state police, Naparajit Mukherjee, contested the NCRB state crime figures, saying that crimes against women have declined significantly in Bengal during 2012.
He told media “Rape incidents and other heinous crimes have come down considerably in the state”. The NCRB refused to publish state disclaimers despite the communication that incidents of heinous crimes dropped to 1,978 in 2012 as against 2,317 the year before.
He asserted that the state police “Have been trying to curb incidents of crimes against women by taking swift actions. The situation is comparatively better now as compared to other states during the last six months.”
The state chief secretary Sanjay Mitra claimed that the state government was committed to zero tolerance towards incidents of rape and crimes against women. He said to the press “We will take the harshest possible measures to deal with the cases of rape. Some isolated incidents have occurred in the state over the past few days, and in every case police has taken action and the accused have been arrested.” He assured that all these incidents would be put to the track court for speedy decision.
Meanwhile demanding stringent administrative action against the offenders, several women’s welfare organisations had staged stay-in-strike near the chief ministers’ residence at Kalighat today in protest against the rising graph of crimes against women in the state. They asserted that the crimes against women were increasing day by day as the NCRB report proved their allegations as true.
Scuffles erupted when Kolkata police tried to disperse the demonstrators. Reports said several arrests were made when the demonstrators insisted to hand over their memorandum to the chief minister in person.
Courtesy of The Independent
