More than 10.69 lakh sexual offenders’ data has been captured in a union government digital platform that investigating agencies use to solve crime cases against women reported from across states.

National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO), launched in September of 2018, has details of more than 10.69 lakh sexual offenders to hunt down habitual sex offenders. Besides, its helps initiate preventive measures against sexual offences, said the ministry of home affairs in the latest annual report.

As per the annual ministry report, in 2019, the reporting of cases relating to crimes against women has increased by 7.3 per cent over 2018. The ministry attributes the spurt to steps it took, including making mandatory to register such cases and public awareness. The statistics compiled by the home ministry stated that the rate of crime committed against women was 62.4 in 2019 per one lakh of the female population.

But, the conviction rate in rape cases is abysmal pointing out the need to sensitise police on adopting better scientific investigation processes in crime against women. Of various sexual offences, 45,536 rape cases were filed in 2019. Out of that, charge sheets in 81.5 per cent of cases were filed, while 1,62,741 matters were put on trial leading to conviction in 4,640. The conviction rate in rape cases is 27.8 per cent which is much less than the overall conviction rate of 50.4 per cent in the Indian Penal Code matters handled by the police of different states.

But, the MHA report said instances of rape are 7.9 per cent of total crimes against women. The majority were reported under ‘cruelty by husband or his relatives (30.9 per cent), followed by assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty (21.8 per cent) and kidnapping and abduction of women (17.9 per cent).

The ministry is trying to address these issues, which plague the policies of most states and union territories. The MHA has developed an Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences (ITSSO) portal for states and UTs to track progress in the detection and resolution of sexual offences based on data of CCTNS, a common platform for all police. It is a cloud-based analytics portal available for law enforcement agencies with drill-down features starting from the national level up to FIR, the ministry explained.

Other measures the government is taking include gender budgeting to make working conditions better for them in police and paramilitary organisations.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW