Is Uttar Pradesh really the most unsafe state for women in India?

SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s comment that there is no other state with as much population reporting lower number of rapes than UP rankles in the wake of horrifying incidents of rapes that are reported from UP with unfailing regularity, starting with the case in Badaun in May to the latest horrific murder-cum-rape in Lucknow. But is UP really the unsafest state for women in the country? Are things truly spiralling out of control in Akhilesh Yadav’s rule, as BJP claims? ET did a fact check:

UP Police Puts Itself in the Dock…

The latest report UP Police submitted to the government last month admits a “remarkable increase of 55.37%” in rape cases in 2013. Rape cases were 1,963 in 2012, but 3,050 in 2013. Nearly half the victims were minors. 1,436 out of the 3050 victims were below 18. “3,050 victims of rape were reported of which highest number were in agegroup of 18 to 30 years (1,307) accounting for 42.8% of total victims of rape, followed by14 to 18 years (787) (25.8%), 10-14 years (395) (12.9 %) and 30 years and above (307) (10.1 %). It is noticeable that in age-group of below 10 years there were (254) (8.3 %) victims,” the report said.

It also lists Western Uttar Pradesh as “concern area”, a top UP Police official told ET. 389 rapes were reported in Meerut range comprising Meerut, Bulandshahar and Ghaziabad. These districts individually also report the highest number of rapes with 109, 97 and 84 incidents, respectively. Adjoining Moradabad Range and Bareilly range reported 231 and 204 rapes, respectively, the report said. Badaun falls in Bareilly range and saw 54 rapes.

The Lucknow range reported 332 rapes while the Allahabad range was next with 237 rapes. Among major cities, Meerut was unsafest reporting 62 rapes followed by Lucknow (55 rapes). There was also a 124% spike in molestation cases in UP last year, with the number of incidents increasing to 7,303 in a year.

But Mulayam has a Point

A top UP cop pointed to the national figures of rape in the latest National Crime Records Bureau report: Three other states report higher number of rapes than UP. BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh reported 4,335 rapes last year, followed by Rajasthan (ruled by Congress in 2013) reporting 3,285 rapes and Maharashtra 3,063 rapes.

The rape rate in MP is four times of UP and of Rajasthan 3 times of UP. “So when Mulayam Singh Yadav says that his state reports the least number of rapes compared to its population, he is right. Almost all states, except Gujarat, have a higher crime rate of rape than UP. There are 9.49 crore females in UP but only 3.36 crore in Rajasthan. But who listens to us?” the UP bureaucrat said.

UP Police Under-staffed

UP Police has jailed maximum rapists. As many as 5,587 rapists were arrested by the UP Police last year. Rajasthan & Maharashtra arrested 2,783 and 4,243, respectively.

The conviction rate of UP for rape cases is also exceptionally high at 53%, double the national average as per the NCRB data for 2013. This “performance”, the UP senior police official quoted earlier said, is “remarkable” considering the UP Police is working with a vacancy of nearly 60%.

The actual police strength was 1,33,261 against sanctioned strength of 3,31,984, rendering 59.85% posts vacant. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is now trying to fill up vacancies and announced recruitments of 40,000 new cops soon.