NCRB Report 2020: Over 400 women harassed in India's shelter homes during COVID pandemic

Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat accounted for a little more than half the cases (54% of the 407 cases) of sexual harassment reported in shelters for women and children  — which are expected to be safe spaces. Maharashtra led the country with 94 cases. When compared to 2019, when 473 incidents of sexual harassment were reported in India, the cases don't seem to have reduced all that much, even during a pandemic. But they have slid down from the 707 that were recorded in 2018.

Shockingly, in 2019, Indore had reported 59 per cent of the cases that came to light from metros around the country. This year, the city from Madhya Pradesh split the deal with Jaipur, each recording 16 and 14 cases respectively, accounting for 75 per cent of the cases reported from metros. Interestingly, Jaipur had reported no cases of harassment at shelters in 2019. Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata also reported no cases this year.

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.