What is the status of Crime in 19 of the large Indian cities?
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 19, 2019
In two
previous stories about the NCRB report on Crime in India-2017, we looked at the
status of crime across states. In this story, we look at the status of various
crimes across 19 of the large Indian cities. Which one reports what kind of
crime more?
Higherdensity of population, wide ranging commercial and non-commercial activitiesetc. in India’s cities create scope for greater incidence of crime compared toother parts of the country. This is the reason for the NCRB to dedicate asection on crime in metropolitan cities.
The NationalCrime Record Bureau (NCRB)’s Crime
in India (CII) report -2017, has a dedicated section various crime statistics in Metropolitancities. In this story, we explore the crime statistics in 19 metropolitancities, provided in NCRB report.
For its CII
report-2017, NCRB took into consideration 19 cities in India withpopulation of more than 2 million i.e 20 lakhs.
Delhi recorded
the highest number of cognizable crimes with Kochi recording the highest rate
The total number
of cognizable crimes recorded in these 19 cities for 2017 was 7,29,174.This is a decrease from the previous two years of 2015 and 2016, when 7,58,970and 8,08,637 cases of cognizable crimes were recorded respectively.
Delhi recordedhighest number of cognizable crimes with 2,24,346 cases, which makes for around31% of the total number in these 19 cities. Kochi ranks second with 59,612cases followed by Mumbai which has a total of 58,456 recorded cognizable crimesfor 2017.
Among thelarger Metro cities, Hyderabad has the least number of recorded cognizablecrimes with 16,639 cases for 2017.
While itranks the highest in respect to total number of cognizable crimes, Delhi rankssecond when it comes to the rate of crimes with 1,375 cases per 1 lakhpopulation. The population figures considered  for these 19 cities are the actuals of 2011census.
Kochi hasthe highest rate among these 19 cities with 2,814 cognizable crimes per 1 lakhpopulation, in line with the fact that Kerala recorded the highest number ofcognizable crimes in India in 2017. The average rate of crimes for all these 19cities is 639.4 per one lakh population and eight cities have a higher crimerate than the national average.  Kolkata,Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune have the least rates of cognizable crimes recordedin 2017.
Crimes
under SLL contribute towards higher crime rate for Kochi while it is crimes
under IPC for Delhi
The rate
of crimes under SLL (Special & Local Laws) is highest for Kochi with2006 cases per one lakh population. Comparatively, the rate
for IPC (Indian Penal Code) crimes is 809 for Kochi.
On theother hand, Delhi has a lower rate of crimes under SLL with 69 per one lakhpopulation while the rate of crimes under IPC is the highest among the citieswith 1,306 per one lakh population. Patna, Jaipur, Lucknow and Bengaluru arethe other metro cities which have a higher rate of crimes registered under IPC. Kolkata and Hyderabad have the leastrate of crimes both for cases under IPC and SLL.
In the case
of Violent crime, Patna recorded the highest rate while Kolkata and
Coimbatore  the least
Violent crimes include various grave crimes such as Murder, causing grievous hurt, culpable homicide, rape, rioting, robbery, arson etc.  Among these 19 cities, Delhi has the highest number of violent crimes reported with 11,684 cases. This is a significant drop from 2015 when it was 18,441. Mumbai and Bengaluru, the other highly populated cities stood at 2 and 4 positions with 5431 and 3813 cases of violent crime respectively. However, Patna which has the least population among the 19 cities (barring Kozhikode), ranks 3 in terms of the total number of violent crimes recorded in 2017.
This isreflected in its crime rate of 209 per one lakh population in the case of Patna,which is the highest among the cities. The next on the list is Delhi with 71.6,significantly lower than the first placed Patna. Lucknow stands third with 66.9and Nagpur with 60.3 violent crimes per 1 lakh of population. These numbersbecome more prominent when we consider the fact that the average rate ofviolent crimes in these 19 cities is 36.6 per lakh population in 2017.
On theother end of the spectrum, we have cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata andCoimbatore with significantly less violent crime rates with 12.3, 10.1, 8.7 and7.9 per one lakh population respectively.
Patna has
the highest rate of crime for Murder with Delhi, Indore & Patna record the high
rate for Kidnapping & Abduction.
Murder and Kidnapping
& Abduction are two of the more prominent heads under violentcrimes.
A total of 1976murder cases were reported in 2017 in the 19 metropolitan cities. This is incontinuation of the decreasing numbers in the last two years, wherein it was2207 and 2194 in 2015 & 2016 respectively. Delhi recorded the highestnumber with 400 murder cases followed by Bengaluru and Patna with 235 and 183 murdercases respectively.
However,Patna has the highest rate of reported murder cases with 8.9 per one lakhpopulation. The next highest is Nagpur with a rate less than half of Patna with3.4 murder cases per lakh population. The average rate of murder cases amongthe 19 cities was 1.7 per lakh population in 2017.
A total of14,759 cases were recorded under ‘Kidnapping and Abduction’ in NCRB’s CII-2017report, a fall from 15,041 cases in the previous year.
Delhi hasthe highest number with 5,203 cases followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru with 2159and 1050 cases respectively. Delhi also has the highest rate of crimes under ‘Kidnapping& Abduction’ with 31.9 cases per lakh population. Indore is a close secondwith 30.9, followed by Pune with a rate of 26.5 cases per lakh population. Theaverage rate across the 19 cities is 12.9 per lakh population.
Lucknow and
Delhi have the highest rate of crimes against Women
As per theNCRB’s CII-2017 report, a total of 40,839
crimes were reported against women in these 19 cities. Inthe case of absolute numbers, Delhi has the highest number of recorded caseswith 11,542 crimes recorded against women. Mumbai and Bengaluru have the nexthighest number of recorded crimes against women with 5,453 and 3,565 casesrespectively. Numbers have fallen when compared to previous year, across thecities.
Whileleading in number of cases, Delhi has the second highest rate of crimes againstwomen with 152.4 such cases per lakh women. Lucknow has the highest rate ofcrimes against women with 178.5. Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur and Ghaziabad are othercities with a higher incidence of crime rate in this category. MeanwhileChennai with 14.9 and Coimbatore with 7.1 per lakh women have the least rate ofcrimes against women.
Lucknow hasthe highest rate among these cities in most of the categories of crimes againstwomen.
‘Assault onWomen with intent to Outrage her Modesty’ is one category with of the highestincidences of crime among the crime against women with an average of 16.4 perlakh women among the 19 cities. Delhi has the highest rate under this categorywith 33.6, followed by Lucknow.
‘Cruelty byhusband or his relatives’ has the highest rate of crime with 21.1 cases per lakhwomen across the 19 cities. Lucknow nearly recorded 4 times the average with83.5 and Jaipur nearly thrice the average with a rate of 61.9 cases per lakhwomen.
Patna has avery high comparative rate of crimes under ‘Dowry Deaths’ with 6.8, while theaverage among the cities is 0.8 and the next highest being Kanpur with a rateof 2.5 per lakh women.
Indore hasthe highest crime rate under ‘Rape” with 19.8 per lakh women followed by Delhi& Jaipur.
Coimbatoreand Chennai have consistently lower crime rates amongst all these categories.
Trends in
crime rate of the cities reflect the trends observed in the respective states
Factly dida two–story series onthe trends in crimes in the States. The observations made in regard to thecrime reporting across the states are also reflected in the trends beingreflected in the state of crimes in the cities though the crime rates may notbe directly comparable since the base population for state crime rate is 2001census and the cities crime rate is 2011 census.
In so faras absolute numbers as was overall crime rate are concerned, Kerala was at top.However, a more detailed look reveals that most of the cases reported were notviolent crimes and Kerala along with other developed states rank lower inrespect to violent and grave crimes. On the other hand, Bihar and UP are amongthe states with higher rates of violent crimes and crimes against women.Similarly, Kochi has highest rate when the overall crimes are considered butwhen we look at the violent crimes and crimes against women, Patna in Bihar andLucknow in UP (along with Ghaziabad, Kanpur etc.) have higher rates of crime.
This couldbe reflective of the observation made in the earlier stories, where most of thedeveloped states may have created an environment where crimes of varied naturecan be reported and the FIRs duly registered. However, in other states, onlythe crimes which cannot be hidden are being reported. The cities continue toreflect the same trends of the respective states.
Anotherimportant factor to note is that the crime rates in the cities of developedstates are similar to the state crime rates, which could reflect even reportingacross the state. While in the case of lesser developed states, the cities havea higher rate of crime than the respective states, which could be a reflectionof higher rates of hiding or non-reporting in the hinterlands of these states.
Delhi has aunique position being the National Capital Territory and its standing as beinglarger than a city and lesser than a full state. While the absolute number ofcrimes in Delhi is less when compared to other states, it consistently ranks ontop when the comparison is among the cities.
Delhi has a unique position being the National Capital Territory and its standing as being larger than a city and lesser than a full state. While the absolute number of crimes in Delhi is less when compared to other states, it consistently ranks on top when the comparison is among the cities.
Featured Image: Crime in Indian cities