The data state that this year also saw a 7.66 per cent rise in atrocities against Scheduled Castes in January to April, compared to the same period last year.The first four months of 2019 have seen a rise in crime in Rajasthan as compared to figures for the corresponding time frame in 2018, police data show.
According to the monthly data released by the Rajasthan police, a total of 55,102 criminal cases were registered in the state during the period of January-April 2018, as compared to 62,666 in January-April 2019.
The data show that from January to April 2019, 10,913 cases of violence against women were registered — a 40.56 per cent increase from the 7,764 cases registered during January-April 2018. Cases of rape for the first four months of the year have gone up by 15.02 per cent while instances of abduction of women increased from 1,415 to 1,706.
The data state that this year also saw a 7.66 per cent rise in atrocities against Scheduled Castes in January to April, compared to the same period last year.
The police said that the increase in the number of cases is because more people are being encouraged to file FIRs.
“One of the reasons behind the increase in number of cases is that we are encouraging and ensuring that anybody who wants to register an FIR is not sent back and their cases are registered. We have done decoy operations against a few SHOs and found that they were not registering cases. As a result, cases are now being regularly registered. This has resulted in a rise in the number of cases,” Additional Director General of Police, Crime, B L Soni told The Indian Express.
He added that at times, social factors contribute to rise in crime, and added that police are monitoring all cases of serious offences.
The Home Ministry portfolio is held by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who holds several other portfolios such as Finance and General Administration.
The BJP has criticised the Congress government in the state in the aftermath of the gangrape of an 18-year-old Dalit woman in front of her husband in Alwar district on April 26. The police came under severe criticism after the victim and her family said that despite repeated pleas, the police didn’t take action for seven days.
“Effectively handling the law and order situation is not a priority of this government. Unless there is regular monitoring of the situation and reports are prepared about work done by officials, the law and order situation can’t be improved. The chief minister is so busy that he doesn’t have time to see this and there is no minister of state for home,” Leader of Opposition and former state home minister Gulab Chand Kataria told The Indian Express.
The Congress government, which came to power in December 2018, said the increase in cases could be attributed to every case being registered. “As per my knowledge, till March, there is a decline of 17 per cent in overall crimes. As of cases of violence against women, now every such case is being registered, which didn’t happen during the BJP regime. Now we have documentation, which wasn’t there earlier,” said Rajasthan Congress vice-president Archana Sharma.
Kataria denied the claims that the previous BJP government didn’t always register FIRs. “There is no truth to this. When it comes to serious crimes such as murder or rape, nobody can refuse registering an FIR. It is very unfortunate that even in Jodhpur, regarded as the home of the chief minister, crime has increased by 38 per cent,” he said.
