Wither goest you...

January 14, 2007

h/l: Women not safe on streets or in homes
intro: Mumbai police statistics for year 2007 show rise in domestic crimes but drop in other crimes compared to 2006
CORRESPONDENT

Mumbai: It is by now a well established fact that Maximum City has the maximum violence against women in the state. The bad news is, women are at threat anywhere in Mumbai – the danger is real both from strangers on the street or from family members at home.

A study of the crime statistics for Mumbai city last year throws up some startling facts. As compared to figures for year 2006, Mumbai police have registered more numbers for dowry related deaths and dowry related harassment against women in 2007. There were 17 dowry related murders in 2007, as opposed to 16 in 2006. Correspondingly, the police registered 368 cases of dowry related harassment in 2007 as opposed to 2006’s 310 cases.

Also at risk from rapists are the city’s minors, most of them girls. In 2007, there were 124 rapes of minors, while there were 112 such rapes in 2006. The figures for rapes of adult women, have however, slightly gone down: there were 48 in 2007 and 51 in 2006.

While the shocking molestation of two girls outside the J W Marriott hotel on December 31 put the spotlight on police inaction and society’s sexual attitudes towards women, Mumbai police were equivocal about the numbers of molestation cases going down each year. If that were true, there would not be 356 cases of ‘outraging the modesty of a woman’ in 2007 as against 350 in 2006.

Overall, more crimes against women were reported last year in the months of March, May, August, September, October, November and December.

Interestingly, other crimes registered lesser numbers in 2007. There were 229 murders, 262 robberies, 6,471 thefts, 3,775 incidents of causing bodily hurt and 242 cases of riots last year. All these figures are lower than those registered in 2006 under the same categories.