300 per cent jump in child rape cases in two years
‘Government should create a Special Child Crime Cell in police stations’
Bengaluru: Karnataka has recorded a shocking 300% increase in the number of child rape cases from 2011 to 2013, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. 97 cases were registered in 2011, with a 21% conviction rate, while 2013 recorded 270 cases with an 11% conviction! This is despite the presence of fast-track courts that have been set up exclusively for the speedy disposition of rape cases.
MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar raised the issue in Parliament on Thursday evening, only to find that not a single case has been registered under the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act, 2012. The Act, passed by the Lok Sabha in 2012, made it mandatory for every sexual offence involving children to be registered under it.
The only case in which the POCSO Act was applied by Bengaluru police was that of the rape of the two-and-half-year-old child by a van driver at her preschool in January this year.
While the government claims that the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has been empowered under the Act, the abysmal percentage of convictions seems to show otherwise.
“Crimes against children are the worst, most horrific forms of cruelty that can be perpetrated by adults,” was Mr Chandrasekhar's angry reaction. “It violates the very notions of basic trust and humanity.”
He promised to work tirelessly to ensure that the school and the perpetrators in the rape of the six-year-old are held responsible and punished, both for the negligence and the crime.
He also demanded that the government create a Special Child Crime Cell in police stations, manned by policemen who have been sensitised about crimes against children.