Orissa beats Delhi and Bihar in crime rates

Expressbuzz, June 6, 2010
BHUBANESWAR: The fast-paced industrialisation and urbanisation have brought the ills as well with Orissa begun to stamp its place among the states with high incidence of violent crimes. With a rate of 26.1 per cent, the State has outnumbered even Delhi and Bihar.


Gujarat and Punjab, in fact, have the least violent crime rate in the country with 12.6 and 13.6 per cent respectively.

Violent crimes in Orissa corner a high share of 18.5 per cent of the total IPC crimes against a mere 7 % in Andhra Pradesh. And, most of the violence and rapes took place in the mining and liquor hotbeds of the State.

Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Ganjam are most violent prone while Bhadrak and Jajpur are most unsafe for women. Dacoits strike at will in Sambalpur, Kendrapara, Jharsuguda, Ganjam and Bhubaneswar. These alerts by the National Crime Records Bureau sum up the state of affairs here.

Keonjhar with a total of 91 murders and 152 attempts to murder tops the districts. Mayurbhanj follows closely with 83 murders while Ganjam with 68 murders and 142 attempts to murder has stood stood third.

In Mayubhanj, crimes under Section 376 of IPC stood at a high of 90 followed by Keonjhar with 66. Koraput and Kandhmal registered 47 and 46 rape cases. In kidnapping/abduction of women or girls, Jajpur leads the pack with 62 cases followed by Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj with 46 and 45 cases respectively. Bhadrak and Ganjam registered 39 and 33 cases.

In molestation, Ganjam had 259 cases followed by Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj with 203 and 200 cases respectively. As far as sexual harassment is concerned, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj topped with 27 cases followed by Ganjam and Nabarangpur with 16 cases each. All these allude to a pattern that shows districts either with high Scheduled Tribe or Caste population have recorded high crime rates.

The Capital city of Bhubaneswar has fewer murders or rapes visavis the said districts. But it fares poorer in comparison to Amritsar in Punjab. When Bhubaneswar has registered a whopping 4,506 IPC crimes in 2008, Amritsar has only 2,327. Rapes in Bhubaneswar totalled 36 against 15 in Amritsar. Cases of robbery, burglary and theft stood at 106, 334 and 1,216 respectively against 21, 142 and 466 only in Amritsar. Against 528 auto thefts here, Amritsar has only 321. Puri a tourist place like Amritsar has 125 and 173 robbery and burglary cases respectively.