Crime against Women: Bihar profile

Crime against Women: Bihar profile

--- Leena Mehendale, IAS
(see more details on
http://www.geocities.com/crime_against_women/RpBihar12.htm
other pgs 3, 4, 5.
Every year the National Crime Records Bureau begins its commendable exercise of collecting and compiling monthly data on crimes from each state and Bihar continues to be late or absent in sending it. It is still possible to analyse this data at a later date and find the trend of crimes over a period of time.
Any reference to the state of Bihar evokes peculiar reactions. Reports are read very often about the high number of crimes committed in one or other place in Bihar. These include the instances of groups killing each other, groups keeping their own private armies, groups perpetrating gang rapes and so on, and yet the number of crimes as reported from Bihar are quite low as compared to the number of crimes reported from other districts in the country.
Discounting the possible gap in reporting, the study of the crime of rapes has been attempted as a starting point. Here again, one is not only required to discount the non-reporting of individual instances of rape or gang-rape, but one is acutely aware that even NCRB does not ask for separate reports of gang-rape although many instances are reported heavily in newspapers from Bihar. A recommendation can be made at the outset that NCRB must start keeping a separate record of all gang rapes, mass rapes or rapes by one community on the other as a result of communal disharmony and revenge psyche.
As a part of my study of crime against women in Bihar, I analysed the data from 1992 to 1999. One major difficulty is encountered for the reason that during this period there have been numerous bifurcations and renaming of the districts and the agencies maintaining data on population, demography or crime have not mentioned the links with previous names. The population data was not readily available according to these bifurcations. Finally the state itself now stands divided into Bihar and Jharkhand. Yet, I find it useful to analyse them together. In Chart 1, the 8-year data is arranged as per revenue divisions as this can act as a useful tool for the Divisional Commissioners, and range DIGs who are both responsible for maintaining law and order and reducing crime. Some of the notable observations are –
* The highest rate of rapes is seen in Gumla district (488 per crore population) which is on the south-west side of Bihar and Kishanganj (450 per one crore population) which is on the north-east side of Bihar. The rest of the districts have lower rates. It is strange as to how these two districts with diagonally opposite geographical locations have shown such high trend of rapes against women.
· *The Purnia division comprising Kishangunj, Purnia, Katihar and Araria districts is at the top of the crime of rape, with each district exceeding a rate of 200. This division is touching Nepal on its north and West Bengal on its east side.
· *The next three districts having high rate of rapes are Muzaffarpur (139), Betiah (115) and Jamui (111 rapes per crore population.)
· *In Jharkhand except Palamu all districts have rates higher than 100. Out of 18 districts, 9 have rates higher than 200. Considering that Jharkhand is predominantly tribal, has a poor economy and only pockets of rich industrial houses, a study of the victim profile is urgently called for.