The crime scene

Published : Nov 21, 2003 00:00 IST

For a country of such enormous size, social diversity and strife, the crime situation in India, as reflected in the latest document of the National Crime Records Bureau, is not cause for anxiety.

TWO recent indecent attacks on women in the nation's capital set alarm bells ringing and triggered a number of media columns on how insecure life had become for those who would like to go about their normal chores. First, a Swiss diplomat was abducted as she was walking towards the parking lot of an auditorium in the heart of New Delhi where an international film festival was being held. Later she was raped. Within an hour, a woman film-maker attending the festival was assaulted, though not raped, near about the same place. The two incidents in quick succession were so outrageous as to provoke feelings against the police for their apparent incompetence and lack of sensitivity to crimes against women. This response was natural, and to take an exception to such criticism against the police would be utter mindlessness. We will, however, have to bring a certain sense of balance that could help to clarify all the issues involved here with the help of statistics recently furnished by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. I may be accused of a certain bias in interpreting them because of my decades of association with the Indian police. You are, however, at liberty to draw your own conclusions on the current state of crime in the country.

While recently releasing Crime in India 2001, the NCRB, conscious of the need to bring citizens up-to-date on crime, made public the preliminary figures for 2002 also. I must compliment NCRB Director Ramavtar Yadav and his team of dedicated officers for this thoughtful move. Otherwise, discussing what happened two years ago without a clue on some recent trends may turn out to be a futile exercise.

Over the years, the NCRB has shaped into a useful outfit with tremendous potential. I am happy to hear that the Home Ministry has been supportive as it ought to be. Apart from initiating work towards national databases, it has also been offering paid services to the public on information regarding stolen motor vehicles. There is every case for expanding such a service that helps public and private organisations to check the background of individuals with whom they would like to transact business.

A certificate on whether an individual figures in criminal records of the country or not is valuable information sought by many while deciding whether or not to offer employment to him or her. At present, in many States, such information is furnished by the local police only when you know any of the top brass. This is contrary to practices in many foreign police forces.

HOW bad is the crime situation in our country? If you would trust the NCRB, there is no cause for anxiety, as there have been only marginal fluctuations. Total crime (that is, offences registered under the Indian Penal Code and the Special & Local Laws (SLL) such as the Arms Act, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, the Dowry Prohibition Act, and so on.) registered a marginal increase of 3.4 per cent during 2001. While such comprehensive figures are not yet available for 2002, it is known that IPC offences dropped last year by about 5 per cent and SLL offences rose by a modest 3.2 per cent.

We have to make allowances for non-reporting of crime and the police tendency to suppress crime to suit their own needs and to pander to the politicians in power so that the latter can trumpet to State Assemblies that crime had come down under their regimes! Even after making such allowances, taking into account a country of India's size and its enormous social diversity and strife, we can pat ourselves on our back because things could have been worse.

I can imagine many readers fuming that this assessment smacks of complacence. I can only assuage their feelings by saying that I am neither underestimating crime nor trying to cover up police inadequacies. What I am trying to impress on my readers is that, in the absence of elaborate and structured victimisation surveys of the kind that is available in the United States and the United Kingdom we have to rest content with official statistics, and the feeling one gets from them is that the situation is not very grave.

Generally speaking, police find it difficult to ignore complaints of murder because they are far too serious, and the public, willy-nilly, get to know of them sooner or later. Hence the number of murders registered by the police is a fair index of the state of violent crime in the country. During the past five years, on an average, there have been about 37,000 homicides per year. The dubious distinction of contributing most (about 20 per cent) to the tally goes to Uttar Pradesh.

What should cause us the utmost concern is that 22 per cent of the murder victims in 2001 were women. Also, a little more than 40 per cent of the murdered persons (both sexes) were in the age group of 18 to 30 years. What a tragedy, that so many precious young lives were lost for dubious causes!

Not to be overlooked is the growing gun culture that had once been associated solely with the West. More than 8,000 people fell victim to gun-fire in 2001. Is this not enough for us to sit up and ask several questions about licensing of firearms and related issues of gun control? If we do not tighten up enforcement now, we will go the American way and posterity will think poorly of us.

Another question that deserves to be asked is, how are we to push up conviction rates in courts? During 2001, two-thirds of the murder cases in which trial was completed ended in acquittal or discharge. Shoddy police investigation and the poor performance of prosecution witnesses in court would account for this painful state of affairs. Political interference and rank corrupt practices on the part of the investigating officers sometimes result in deliberately faulty presentation of evidence in court. We saw this in full measure in the Best Bakery case of Gujarat when the Sessions Court acquitted all the accused because most of the material witnesses turned hostile. I cannot say with certainty that the police will have learnt valuable lessons from this sordid episode.

THE volume of crimes against women is a fair index of how civilised a society is. Any sharp increase in its incidence is a reflection of not only poor policing but lax social controls exercised by institutions such as the family, schools and colleges and religious bodies. An average of about 15,000 rapes is registered nationally every year. Although there have been no marked fluctuations in the number of rapes since 1998 - there was actually an 8 per cent drop last year - one should record here that if the whole decade, namely 1991-2001, is taken into account, there was a 54.4 per cent spurt. This situation is far from edifying.

The reduction in the number of rapes reported to the police last year may not square with the impressions caused by the recent happenings in Delhi. The fact is that one or two incidents in a major metropolis that receive extensive media coverage are enough to besmirch the reputation of a police force or a city, and to heighten fear of crime. This is why the media will have to be extra careful in handling such incidents, and it should actually take up responsibility for infusing confidence among sections of the community that are vulnerable and portray a high level of fear of crime.

There is a contentious debate whether rape, under certain circumstances, should be punishable with death. Opinion is strongly split here. There is one school of thought that believes the death penalty will be a strong deterrent. The other school points out how such punishment has not brought down even homicide rates in most parts of the world. Also relevant is the fact that enhancing penalties will lead to courts demanding stricter proof of the offence. This could in turn bring down conviction rates, which are already abysmal. Relevant here is the shocking information that of the 11,735 rape cases in which trial was completed by courts in 2001, as many as 8,669 (74 per cent) failed in court. This is one fact that supports the argument that we should concentrate on the quality of investigation and prosecution rather than on a mere enhancement of punishments. Fortunately, wisdom seems to have dawned on those who were earlier clamouring for death for rape, and they have gone into a shell! Non-governmental organisations would do well to devote attention to the evolving of safety standards to protect women and also to sensitise police forces to the task of responding faster to distress calls from women.

NCRB figures reveal that property crime is on the decline. This was the situation in respect of all three important heads of this category, namely, dacoity, robbery and burglary (which dropped by more than 10 per cent in 2002.) This trend does not carry credibility against the context of increased commercial activity all over the country and the wide dispersal of private wealth. Is this fall in the number of property crime because of a growing cynicism that it is futile to report one's loss to the police? Or is this more an index of the effectiveness of the expanding arm of private security agencies? All major cities can now boast of professional organisations that sell security at reasonable prices. Apartment complexes have stricter access control than before, possibly making the much- touted `target hardening', advocated by crime prevention experts for several years, a reality. This growth in private security services is a welcome trend that offers relief to an overstretched government-run police which has a wider public order charter.

Crime in India is an immensely useful publication. Every NCRB director has brought in some new feature or the other. It is time that `cyber crime' receives the attention that is due. The only difficulty is that such crime is still grossly under reported. Currently available statistics may, therefore, only convey wrong impressions about its incidence.

While signing off, I would like to reiterate an earlier suggestion on how to make Crime in India even more readable and comprehensible to a lay reader who has a high stake in understanding the ambience in which he or she lives. I would strongly commend that each year's figures be submitted in advance to an expert (an academic in the area of social sciences or a former police officer with an insight into crime trends and with excellent analytical abilities) for an overall qualitative review of the scene and setting an agenda for action. This should be carried in each issue of Crime in India along with the NCRB's comments. This would be a vast improvement over the existing practice of furnishing statistics in isolation and a little out of context with what is happening in society.

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