by Minhaj Masoodi
SRINAGAR: Crimes against women have gone marginally up in 2020. As against 3193 cases of crimes against women reported in 2019, the numbers have jumped to 3515 for the year 2020, the Crime Gazette 2020 that was recently released by Jammu and Kashmir Police revealed.
Cases of rape, molestation and abetment or attempt to suicide have seen an increase. Against 297 rape cases in 2019, Jammu and Kashmir reported 365 cases of rape in 2020, 1754 cases of molestation in 2020 against 1452 cases in 2019 and 172 cases of abetment or attempt to suicide in comparison to 123 cases in 2019.
Comparatively, the cases have increased in Kashmir Zone while those in Jammu have reduced, albeit marginally. The year 2020 witnessed an increase of 443 cases of crime against women in Kashmir Zone from 1950 to 2393 while the cases fell from 1243 cases in 2019 to 1122 in 2020 in Jammu Zone.
Out of these 3515 cases reported in 2020, 1122 cases of crime were committed in Jammu Zone while 2393 crimes were reported from the 13 Police Districts of Kashmir Zone.
In Kashmir Zone, Police District Budgam reported 340 cases which is the highest number of crimes against women reported from a particular district in 2020. The case count reported is highest in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
Police District Baramulla reported 315 crimes against women. Police District Anantnag and Kulgam reported 268 and 267 cases of crime respectively. Shopian reported 150 cases of crime against women while Sopore, Ganderbal, Bandipora, Handwara, Pulwama, Awantipora reported 159, 124, 83, 70, 55 and 43 cases respectively.
Police district Jammu reported the highest number of cases in the Jammu zone. It reported a total of 316 cases of crime reported against women, followed by Rajouri and Poonch at 182 and 122 cases respectively. Udhampur reported a total of 113 cases of crime against women in 2020. Kathua, Doda, Ramban, Samba, Reasi and Kishtwar reported 113, 102, 84, 64, 52, 51 and 36 cases respectively.
Police district Budgam reported 34 cases of rape, the highest in Kashmir Province, followed by Ganderbal (28), Kulgam (23), Kupwara (22), Baramulla (21), Anantnag (18).
Police District Awantipora reported the least number of rape cases (01) in the whole UT of Jammu and Kashmir, followed by Police District Handwara (03) and Sopore (05).
Srinagar reported 15 cases of rape in the year 2020 as per the gazette. Bandipora, Shopian, and Pulwama reported 14, 11, and 07 cases respectively.
Police District Rajouri reported the highest number of rape cases (30) in Jammu Province, followed by Jammu (29). Police district Udhampur reported 19 cases of rape while Poonch reported 17 cases. Meanwhile, 15 cases of rape were reported from Police District Doda. Kathua and Reasi each reported 14 rape cases in 2020, 10 cases of rape were reported from Ramban, Samba (9) while Kishtawar reported only 6 cases, the least in the zone.
With regard to molestation cases, the gazette revealed that Police District Budgam reported the greatest number of cases; 248 in 2020, followed by Srinagar (187), Kulgam (176) and Anantnag (138). Police District Baramulla reported 116 cases of molestation while Sopore reported 101 cases. Police District Shopian reported 103 molestation cases, while Police District Kupwara reported 118 cases of molestation.
Police District Awantipora reported the least number of molestation cases; 22 in the year 2020, while Handwara, Bandipora and Pulwama reported 25, 29 and 30 cases of molestation respectively.
In Jammu Zone, Police District Jammu reported 98 cases of molestation while Rajouri reported the highest number of molestation cases in the zone, (63). Poonch reported 59 cases followed by Kathua (36), Udhampur (35), Doda (32), Ramban (28), Kishtwar (17). Reasi and Samba reported the least cases in the province, 14 each.
In Kashmir Zone, Police District Anantnag and Baramulla reported the highest number of cases of kidnapping and abduction of women and girls. Both districts reported 67 such cases. Kulgam reported 54 cases while Police District Kupwara and Sopore reported 47 and 44 cases respectively. Police District Srinagar and Budgam reported 42 cases each. South Kashmir’s Awantipora and Pulwama Police District reported the least number of cases of abduction and kidnapping with 15 and 16 cases respectively followed by Bandipora (23), Shopian (32) and Handwara (34).
Police District Jammu reported 116 cases of abduction and kidnapping of women and girls as per the gazette for 2020, the highest for UT. Jammu was followed by Police District Rajouri (40), Poonch (33), Kathua (29), Udhampur (21), Reasi (19), Doda (17) in Jammu Zone.
Kashmir Zone witnessed 153 cases of cruelty by husband or relatives of the husband as opposed to 196 such cases reported in Jammu Zone for the year 2020, as per the gazette. In Kashmir, Police District Srinagar reported the highest number of cases (47) of cruelty by husband or his relatives against women followed by Kupwara (20) and Baramulla (17).
Pulwama reported the least number of such cases (2) followed by Awantipora (4).
In Jammu Zone, Police District Jammu reported the highest number of cases of cruelty by husband or relatives of husband, 49, followed by Rajouri at 47 cases. Reasi and Doda reported the least number of such cases, only two.
Jammu Zone reported 28 cases of eve-teasing while 25 cases were reported from Kashmir Zone.
Jammu Zone reported a total of eight cases of dowry deaths while only two were reported in Kashmir Zone. Both the deaths were reported from Police District Anantnag. Meanwhile, no cases of the Dowry Prohibition Act were reported from Jammu Zone and only two were reported from Kashmir.
However, no cases of immoral trafficking were reported from either zone.
