One would imagine that with a lockdown that lasted almost four months, cases of stalking of women would come down in 2020, when compared to 2019. However, there only seems to be a 4.25 per cent decrease in cases of stalking in 2020, with 8,512 cases reported. Maharasthra leads the states in the number of incidents reported, at 2,013, whereas Nagaland reported zero cases of stalking in 2020. Maharashtra's case tally is actually down from 2161 in 2019. Cases of voyeurism were at 1,090 in 2019, and have since registered a slight increase, listing at 1,260 this year, with Andhra Pradesh reporting the most number of cases at 124. Total cases of sexual harassment reported stood at 17,003 in 2020, down by 1,331 cases from 2019's 18,334. With most people working from home in the last year, only 485 incidents of workplace sexual harassment were reported, down marginally from 2019's 505 cases.
The Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown resulted in a drop in traditional crimes like theft, robbery, and assault on women and children in 2020, but there was a drastic jump in disobedience to government orders, primarily arising due to violations of COVID-19 norms, official data showed.
According to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on 'Crime in India – 2020', a total of 66,01,285 cognisable crimes comprising 42,54,356 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 23,46,929 Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes were registered in 2020. NCRB has been bringing out the Crime in India report since 1953. It shows an increase of 14,45,127 (28 per cent) in registration of cases over 2019 (51,56,158 cases), while the crime rate registered per lakh population increased from 385.5 in 2019 to 487.8 in 2020.
In 2019, Delhi had reported 485 cases of sexual harassment, and just 21 cases of workplace harassment, whereas the number was down to just 12 in 2020. Mumbai reported 452 cases of stalking this year, out of Maharashtra's total of 2013. Surat and Coimbatore, remarkably, reported absolutely no cases of stalking in both 2019 and 2020. The overall rate of crimes against women in 2020 showed a significant decrease of 21.1 per cent in metropolitan cities in the country over 2019.
