While City Beautiful has a lot to boast about on its well-planned layout, cleanliness, greenery and laid-back lifestyle ideal for pensioners and senior citizens, it is now earning an unwanted reputation on the law-and-order front.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) Crime in India 2024 report, released on Wednesday night, revealed that Chandigarh recorded the second-highest crime rate among all Union Territories in India.
The city’s crime rate stood at 290.4 cases per lakh population, second only to Delhi at 1,285.5. Chandigarh’s rate was also above the national average of 237.4.Among states, Kerala (513), Haryana (368.5) and Telangana fared worse than Chandigarh.
Crime rate – measured as incidents per lakh population – is used to compare crime levels across regions, be it big cities or small, after adjusting for population size.
According to the report, the city saw 2,941 cases registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2022. The number went up to 3,285 cases in 2023. In 2024, 3,621 were registered – 2,391 under the IPC and 1,230 under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita which replaced the IPC mid year.
Special and Local Laws (SLL) cases, which included cases registered under the Excise Act, Narcotics Act and other acts saw a decline from 900 cases in 2023 to 448 cases in 2024, even as IPC crimes saw an rise. UT senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kanwardeep Kaur said, “In 2024, there was a visible rise in immigration fraud cases. White-collar crime cases saw the maximum increase.”
No city for women
More worrying is the fact that Chandigarh’s rate (cases per one lakh population) surpassed even that of Delhi, a city often viewed as the most unsafe for women.With 96 rape cases in 2024, Chandigarh’s rape rate stood at 16.6 while that of Delhi was 10.3. Among states, Goa (13.3) and Rajasthan (12.2) had the highest rate of rape. In 2024, Chandigarh also saw two attempt-to-rape cases and 12 sexual harassment cases.
Speaking about this, SSP Kaur added, “This is not necessarily a bleak figure. The reason Chandigarh’s rape rate is higher than Delhi’s is that we take note of each rape complaint we receive. We register an FIR even where rape is committed on the pretext of marriage. During my term here, we have not had a single violent rape case like the Nirbhaya case.”
The number of crimes against women also saw a rise. In 2022, 325 cases were registered which rose to 371 in 2023 and 452 cases in 2024.
SSP Kaur added that since the judgment by Justice NS Shekhawat of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Chandigarh police ensure they register FIRs in cases of cruelty against women within 15 days of the complaint. Murder up, crime against children dips
Murder cases increased from 18 in 2022 to 22 in 2024, though they had dipped to 17 in 2023. Crimes against children, however, declined to 255 cases in 2024, after rising from 224 in 2022 to 294 in 2023. The city also reported 176 kidnapping cases, 1,600 theft cases, and 522 fraud cases in 2024.
www.hindustantimes.com
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