Madhya Pradesh is the most unsafe state for senior citizens, the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) ‘Crimes in India’- 2021 report said. Chhattisgarh occupies the second position while Himachal Pradesh takes the third spot.
The data reveals the rate of crimes against senior citizens (those who are 60 years of age and above) in Madhya Pradesh stands at 92.3 against senior citizens while Chhattisgarh occupies the second position with 70.
Himachal Pradesh is third with 59.6 which is higher than the national average of 25.1.
The crime rate is the number of crimes per lakh population. Union territory of Delhi recorded the highest crime rate of 101.7 per lakh population against elderly persons among all the states and UTs.
Himachal Pradesh has 7 lakh persons aged 60 years and above, constituting 10.2% of its total population, higher than the national average of 8.6 (Census 2011). A total of 419 crimes against senior citizens were reported in the hill state in 2021, a 152% increase since 2019 when only 166 such crimes were reported and 6.3% increase compared to 394 in 2020. Himachal’s neighbour state Uttarakhand has the safest in the category with a crime rate as low as 0.8.
The other two neighbouring states Punjab and Haryana have 11.7 and 48.1 respectively while in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir including Ladakh, it was just 4.4.
Ten cases of murder of senior citizens were reported in the state including two rapes, four attempted murder, 67 simple hurt, 29 grievous hurt, 12 cases of assault on woman intended to outrage her modesty (354IPC), 74 cases of criminal trespass, 23 of forgery and cheating, five of fraud and 26 cases of criminal intimidation.
As many as 341 people including 263 men and 78 women, were arrested for committing crime on senior citizens while a total of 567 (453 men and 114 women) were chargesheeted.
Only four people were convicted in 2021 with the conviction rate of only 5.1%.
According to the report, crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special Acts and Local Laws (SLL) in the state increased with 31,874 cases reported in 2021 against 35,433 in 2020.
The IPC crimes were down by 11.9% from 14,803 in 2020 to 13,041 in 2021. Violent crimes too have come down by 3%. In 2020, the state reported 1,817 while this year, the number of such crimes was 1,762.
The NCRB’s violent crime category includes murder, attempted murder, culpable homicide, attempted culpable homicide, dowry deaths, infanticide, foeticide, grievous hurt, kidnapping and abduction, rape, attempt to rape, rioting, robbery, dacoity, and arson. The crime rate of violent crimes was 23.8 in the hill-state with its mid-year project population of 74.1 lakh.
Crime against women also declined marginally by 0.9%. This year 1,599 crimes against women were registered against 1,614 in 2020.
