Crime rate is falling in Mumbai, statistics show

MUMBAI: Despite a surge in the population, crime rate in the country's financial capital is actually falling if one goes by the statistics provided by the police department.

However, Right To Information activist Shailesh Gandhi suspects that statistics do not reflect the fall in crime, it shows growing reluctance on the police's part to register congnisable crimes.

Under Criminal Procedure Code, a cognisable offence, when it comes to police officer's knowledge, has to be registered and probed.

Information obtained by Gandhi from Mumbai police under the RTI Act reveals that 32,419 cognisable crimes were registered in the city in 1984 and the number fell to 30,197 in 2007!

No information is available before 1984. The number of crimes, it seems, grew for a few years after 1984, as 40,979 crimes were registered in 1991 but, thereafter, there was a decline.

To put it in proper perspective, Gandhi has worked out the number of crimes per one lakh of the population. He shows that if police figures are correct, number of crimes per one lakh people (per year) was 373 in 1984, 414 in 1991, 243 in 2001 and 227 in 2007.

Gandhi claims that this is not because the crime rate is on decline but because police across the police-stations in the city are indulging in what he calls "burking", i.e. suppression of registration of crimes.