Domestic violence tops crime against women in 2018: NCRB

Domestic violence against women figures as the top category of violence against women in 2018, according to data from the 'Crimes in India - 2018' report compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

As per the data, a total of 89,097 cases related to crimes against women was registered across India in 2018. The figures indicate not much has improved when compared to the figure of 86,001 cases registered under this head in 2017. The crime rate per lakh women population is 58.8 in 2018 in comparison to 57.9 in 2017.

'Crime Rate' is calculated by dividing the number of cases reported by the population size in lakhs.

Out of the total crimes registered under the Indian Penal Code(IPC) against the women, the majority of the cases were registered under the 'cruelty by husband or his relatives' at 31.9 per cent. This was followed by 'assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty' at 27.6 per cent. The cases of the 'kidnapping and abduction of women stood at 22.5 per cent and the rape cases comprised 10.3 per cent of the overall crime figures.

A total of 50,74,634 cognizable crimes, comprising 31,32,954 IPC and 19,41,680 Special and Local Laws (SLL) crimes, were registered in 2018.

Despite an increase of 1.3 per cent in the registration of cases in 2018 over 2017 with 50,07,044 cases, the crime rate per lakh population has declined from 388.6 in 2017 to 383.5 in 2018.