The National Crime Records Bureau's (NCRB) Cime in India 2020 report showed that crimes against children has come down by 26,121, during the year 2020, when compared to 2019 — a large part of which was ravaged by the COVID pandemic. The rate of crime against children (per lakh population) has come down by 4.3 per cent.
While Madhya Pradesh recorded the most number of cases (17,008), Uttar Pradesh (15271) and Maharashtra (14,371) came close behind. The 2019 stats recorded Maharashtra on top with 19,592 cases, while Madhya Pradesh took the second spot with 19,028 cases. Both the states have seen a significant drop this year. The rate of cases recorded under POCSO remained the same at 10.6 per cent.
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 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.
