Rape Cases in India – Has anything changed after the Nirbhaya Incident? - Part 1
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 10, 2015
Crimes against Women have continued to make headlines in our country for quite some time now. Public reaction to these crimes has varied between peaks and lows; peaking when a grotesque crime is brought to limelight by mainstream media and ebbing away after a period of sustained vociferous condemnation on social media platforms and the occasional candle light march.
In such a scenario, it would be prudent for us to look into the statistical data about Crimes against Women and sensitize ourselves about how we could deal with these issues.
The vast quantum of data that is available about crimes against women is an indicator in itself about the gravity of these crimes. And for that simple reason covering all the crimes against women in one article became unworkable. Hence in the first in a series of articles on crimes against women, we deal with ‘Rapes in India”.
A newspaper without the daily dose of rapes reported across the length and breadth of our country looks almost impossible and worse amongst all age groups. We have data for the number of Rape cases registered, convicted, persons arrested, persons convicted and much more for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. Analysis of the data from these three years gives us invaluable insights into how this horrific crime has been dealt with, how the institutions have responded etc. This will also provide valuable insights to understand whether the Nirbhaya incident in December 2012 has changed anything on ground.
Did the Nirbhaya incident and the national outrage that followed have any impact on the institutional response in the following year? Has the attitude about registering and reporting of rape cases changed post December 2012?  Let us take a look at the data and find out.
To understand the analysis and data, let us first familiarize ourselves with the parameters based on which data has been categorised
Cases Registered: The number of Rape cases registered in the given year.
Cases Convicted : The number of cases in which trial has been completed and those that resulted in conviction of the accused. These cases that completed trial wouldn’t have been necessarily registered in the same year only. This is because of the time taking nature of our judicial process.
Persons Arrested: The number of Persons arrested on the charge of Rape.
Persons Convicted: Persons who have undergone trials and have been finally adjudged guilty and convicted.
Pending Trials: The number of cases awaiting final judgement at the end of the particular year.
Cases registered per 1 lakh women: The number of Rape cases registered per 1 lakh women in that region/state. This is calculated taking into account the female population (of Census 2011) of the particular region/state.
Conviction Rate: This is the percentage of cases that resulted in conviction of the total cases that completed trial in that year. It is to be noted that it is a percentage of completed trials and not a percentage of cases registered in that particular year. A case registered in a particular year can complete trial in any year. This distinction is to be understood.
All India Numbers:  2011 to 2013
The following numbers are cumulative figures for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013.
It is worth noting that
Year on Year Comparative Analysis
It is worth noting that
(Note: The persons convicted in a year might not necessarily have been arrested in the same year, conviction results from trials completed in a particular year)
In Focus – Delhi
In the recent years, Delhi has earned itself the reputation of being the ‘Rape Capital’. While this claim cannot be completely refuted, the data does not suggest otherwise.
Cases Registered
(Deviation from Average: This is the percentage by which a certain value varies with respect to its corresponding average. If the value is greater than the average then it results in a positive deviation and if the value is lesser than the average then it results in negative deviation)
It is worth noting that
Cases Convicted
Persons Arrested
It is worth noting that
Persons Convicted
It is worth noting that
Pending Trials
Number of pending trials decreased by 2% from 2011 to 2012, but increased by a massive 53% cases from 2012 to 2013. This can be explained by the fact that the number of cases registered increased by more than two times from 2012 to 2013. But then at the same time Government set up a fast track court to specifically deal with sexual offences in January 2013 itself and yet this doesn’t have seemed to have had any substantial impact on the pending trials.
Cases Registered Per 1 Lakh Women
It is worth noting that
Conviction Rate
It is worth noting that
What do the numbers tell us?
The following trends were observed from analysis of the All India data and the Delhi data with respect to cases related to Rape
In the articles to follow, we will look at detailed numbers from different regions of the country & also the states. We will also look at the initiatives by the government to deal with crimes against women.
Data Sources
Answer to Unstarred Question No. 4964, Ministry of Home Affairs
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/
Featured image: Ramesh Lalwani | Flickr
In part 2 of the series on Rape cases in India from 2011-13, we look at different regions of the country and compare trends. Read it here