Union Home Minister of India has released the ‘Crime in India – 2016’ published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs.
It is for the first time, for 19 Metropolitan cities (having population above 2 million) also, chapters on “Violent Crimes”,” Crime Against Women”,” Crime Against Children”, “Juveniles in conflict with law”, “Crime Against SC/STs”, “Economic Crimes”,” Cyber Crimes”,” Crime Against Senior Citizens” and “Disposal of Cases by Police and Court” have been included in the report.
Some of the salient features in this publication includes a new chapter on “Missing Persons & Children”, in addition to first time Statistics on the seizures of Arms, Ammunitions, Drugs and Currency by CAPFs/CPOs (Assam Rifles, CISF, BSF, CRPF, NIA and SSB).
New tables on cases registered and their disposal by RPF under Railway Act 1989 and Railway Property (unlawful possession) Act 1966 have also been included.
Murder cases in the country have shown declining trends during the last three years. Murder cases decreased by 5.2% in 2015-16, from 32,127 cases in 2015 to 30,450 cases in 2016.
Cases under Rioting have decreased by 5% in 2015-16 i.e. 61,974 cases in 2016 as compared to 65,255 cases in the year 2015. Cases under Robbery have decreased by 11.8% in 2015-16.
Cases under Dacoity have decreased by 4.5% in 2015-16, i.e. 3,795 cases in 2016 as compared to 3,972 in 2015.
Cases under ‘Crime Against Women’ have reported a marginal decrease in the year 2016 (3,38,954) compared to the year 2014 (3,39,457), however for 2016, it is a marginal increase compared to 2015 (3,29,243).
Cases reported under “Juveniles in Conflict with Law” have also shown a decreasing trend too, in the year 2016, there were 35,849 cases against 38,455 cases in the year 2014, but a increase in comparison to year 2015 (33,433).
Atrocities/Crime Against Scheduled Castes have increased by 5.5% in 2016 (40,801) over 2015 (38,670), while Atrocities/Crime Against Scheduled Tribes have increased by 4.7% in 2016 (6,568) over 2015 (6,276), though the Atrocities/Crime Against Scheduled Tribes has decreased in 2016 compared to year 2014 (6,827).
A total of 48,31,515 cognizable crimes comprising 29,75,711 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 18,55,804 Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes were reported in 2016, showing a nominal increase of 2.6 percent over the year 2015 (47,10,676 cases).
IPC Crimes have increased marginally by 0.9% (from 29,49,400 in 2015 to 29,75,711 in 2016). For States perspective, Uttar Pradesh accounted for 9.5% of total IPC crime reported in the country followed by Madhya Pradesh (8.9%), Maharashtra (8.8%) and Kerala (8.7).
Delhi City accounted for 38.8% of total IPC crime reported in the cities followed by Bengaluru (8.9%) and Mumbai (7.7%).
National Crime Records Bureau, an attached office of Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India was established in 1986 with a mandate to empower Indian Police with information technology solutions and criminal intelligence to enable them to enforce the law effectively.
The computerization of the police forces in India started in 1971. NCRB started CCIS in the year 1995, CIPA in 2004 and finally CCTNS in 2009. The CCTNS connects approximately 12794 police stations and 6000 higher offices in the country.
CCTNS once fully functional, will allow search for a criminal / suspect on a national data base apart from providing various services to the citizens through Citizen Portal.
In future, it is also proposed to connect Police, Courts, Prosecution, Prisons and Forensic Labs into an Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) for facilitating data exchange between the various pillars of criminal justice system.
NCRB also compiles and publishes National Crime Statistics i.e. Crime in India, Accidental Deaths & Suicides, Prison Statistics and Finger Prints. These publications serve as principal reference points by policy makers, police, criminologists, researchers and media both in India and abroad.
NCRB has also floated various IT based Public Services like, Vahan Samanvyay (online Motor Vehicle Matching), Talash ( matching of missing persons and dead bodies). In addition, NCRB also maintains Counterfeit Currency Information and Management System (FICN) and Colour Portrait Building System (CBPS).
NCRB has recently received “Digital India Award 2016-Silver Open Data Championship” from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India for uploading of Crime Statistics since 1965 on website.
The Central Finger Print Bureau established in 1955, is also embedded in NCRB and is a national repository of all fingerprints in the country and has more than one million ten digit finger prints data base of criminals (both convicted and arrested), provides for search facility on FACTS (Fingerprint Analysis and Criminal Tracing System). It is proposed to upgrade to NAFIS in near future so that police stations will be able to send finger prints/ fire queries directly online to NCRB.
NCRB also assists various States in capacity building in the area of Finger Prints, CCTNS, Network security and Digital Forensics through its training centers in Delhi and Kolkata. NCRB has conducted more than 750 training programmes and trained approximately 16000 officers till date including foreign law enforcement officers (1366 foreign officers from 93 countries).