Nagpur: Nagpur, last year, 2015, recorded 166 rape cases and 392 assault cases against women. The second capital Maharashtra with an estimated population of 35 to 40 lakhs has a worse crime record than bigger cities like Mumbai and Kolkata with larger population sizes. Respective police chiefs of the city repeatedly promise to take steps to bring down crime in general and crime against women specifically, but the graph only shows continuous increase.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Tuesday released data for all crimes recorded in the country in 2015. Under various parameters, data has been classified to show how states and major cities fare on the crime graph. A national English daily accessed the data to figure out which cities could be classified as the most unsafe for women in the country. To prepare the list, the newspaper, Indian Express took a look at two critical parameters – rate of rape cases against women in each city and the same for ‘assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty’. The latter section deals with sexual harassment cases, use of criminal force with intent to disrobe, voyeurism and stalking. The cities that they listed appear prominently in both indicators and are seen to record a high number of cases with respect to assault on women.
To our cumulative shame, Nagpur ranks 5th in this.The 6th and the last city mentioned is Durg-Bhilai from Chattisgarh.
We follow cities like Delhi and other North Indian cities of Rajasthan and M.P. like Bhopal and Gwalior . Jodhpur in Rajasthan was rated the highest.
UNBELIEVABLE-NAGPUR POLICE HAVE A LIST OF 25 LAKH CRIMINALS!
(This is a figure arrived at by a prominent Crime reporter of Nagpur from police sources and reported in today’s Marathi papers.)
25 lakhs – sounds like a big chunk of the population of the city. Are we a city of criminals then??
Of this number, one lakh are repeated offenders. Another lakh are associated with various criminal gangs. There are more than 50 notorious criminal gangs said to be operating in the city.
These figures have been recorded by the survey conducted by the National Crime Record Bureau for 2015.
Nagpur is considered the unsafest and most prone to crime city of the state since it sees daily an influx of migrants coming in from Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, U.P. and Bihar. They mostly come as labour to find work in the ‘developing city’ of Nagpur.
The city police have a challenge on their hands keeping a record of the criminally minded people who come in and settle on the outskirts of the city. There are many localities like those on Seminary Hills, Hingna road and along the Ring road where residents feel unsafe due to daily incidents of dacoities and molestation.
Further, there is an extensive railway line criss -crossing the city which make escape easy for criminals.
In 2014 city 10, 351 FIRs being recorded. This figure has gone up to 11,018 FIRs. An increase of a whopping 659.
But unfortunately, the strength of the police force needed to tackle this increasing crime rate is not seeing an increase.
The city has been ‘allowed’ or rather ‘given’ policemen and officers numbering 8,429 but has a force of only 5000+ in reality. The rest are vacancies that are taking endless time to be filled in.
Three new police stations have been created in Mankapur, Shantinagar and Bajaj Nagar but filled in by transferring police from other stations. No new posts have been created to man them.
Since the C.M. and an important Union Minister come from this city, apart from it being H.Q of RSS all eyes of the country are on Nagpur.
When new crimes are reported daily the pained C.M. says ” don’t paint Nagpur as a Crime – capital please!”
But what steps is he taking, as Home Minister also, to fight crime citizens are being continuously subjected to?
One heartening fact for Nagpur has been the dynamic new Police Commissioner we have had for last 3 months.
“Don’t go by statistics and figures, they never give the complete and real picture” says Dr. Venkateshan, this new Police Commissioner of Nagpur speaking exclusively to NT.
But with his acumen and experience of fighting crime, even notorious gangsters in a city like Mumbai, and his early stint with Naxals in Gondia, the P.C’s reputation precedes him. As do our expectations from him.
He refutes many of the figures above and says that a number of factors affects reporting of crime through numbers only.
“For instance, definition of rape has been expanded recently so crimes that were not being registered as rape come under that definition now, so numbers go up.
We have been instructed by Courts to change ‘Missing complaint’ into case of Kidnapping if person reported missing is not found in 24 hours.”
Dr. Venkateshan says that they are talking to local people and doing a ‘Victim survey’ to come up with new strategies to fight crime.
He is confident that when figures for 2016 are collated, many types of crimes would show a drastic decrease. But he rues that incident of Murders have gone up marginally.
But many other crimes like crime over property have gone down with police intervention. Land documentation and an inter disciplinary approach is being used with great success, says the Commissioner.
Speaking about increasing the numbers of the police force in the city he emphasizes that Quality is more important than Quantity.
“We are forming ‘Verticals’ where different teams will look after different areas of concern . A team of DCPs and other senior officers is brain storming over this daily” reports Venkateshan.
He concedes that there is a problem of migrants coming into the city daily and promises to deal with it with a ‘different approach’.
“Let’s not compare Nagpur with Mumbai or Calcutta or any other city. A growing city has its own intrinsic problems. Like in a village or small town, the police are very few yet crime is less because everyone knows each other and that is a great deterrent for crime. Nagpur has recently become a metro and growing fast”.
The Smart City plan for the second capital will definitely help in curbing crime, feels the new Police Commissioner.
We will have CCTVs put up throughout the city – so any criminal activity can at once be detected and curbed.
When Venkatesh says it, it does not sound like an empty promise. He is known for his success in digitization and turning police station e-savvy!
