Trinity Mount Ministries

Showing posts with label Assam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assam. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Atrocities on kids rise in Assam

Guwahati: Assam has reported a three-fold increase in the number of cases relating to crimes against children between 2014 and 2016. Nearly 75 per cent of these were kidnapping cases.

According to the Crime in India 2016 report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released by Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday, the number of cases related to crime against children increased from 1,385 in 2014 to 2,385 in 2015 and 3,964 in 2016.

Tripura reported 369 cases, followed by Meghalaya (213), Mizoram (178), Manipur (137), Arunachal Pradesh (134) and Nagaland (25). The report said of the 3,964 cases reported in Assam last year, 2,970 were kidnapping cases followed by murders (35).

With the region prone to trafficking, 1,519 cases of abduction related to procurement of minor girls, followed by 676 cases in which minor girls were kidnapped and forced into marriage. The state reported 32 cases of trafficking and another 31 cases relating to kidnapping for prostitution.

Save the Children, an NGO, blamed poor implementation of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS), slow progress of trial and poor enforcement of the laws. "If child protection committees are set up in each village, block and the district as stipulated by ICPS, crimes against children will come down. This will help us keep a database of children and keep watch on crimes against them too. Similarly, criminals like those involved in trafficking rackets are taking advantage of the improved communication like mobile networks to take their targets out easily," project coordinator of Save the Children in Assam, Deba Prasad Sarma, said.

He stressed the need for a state-level action plan to check crimes against children.

Chiranjeeb Kakoty, director of Northeast Society for Promotion of Youth and the Masses (NESPYM), another NGO here, however, said many cases of kidnapping could be cases of elopement. "As soon as a girl goes missing, parents immediately lodge a missing complaint in a police station and in most cases a kidnapping case is also registered. But during investigation, it has often been found that the girl had eloped. Kidnapping and trafficking are serious issues but a large chunk of such kidnappings are mutual elopement," he said.

The NCRB report also revealed 821 cases of sexual offence against children in Assam in 2016 of which 586 were rape cases. Mizoram reported 167 cases followed by Tripura (156), Meghalaya (151), Manipur (43) and Nagaland (27). The cases were registered under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012.

The number of cases of juveniles in conflict, however, came down to 436 in 2016 against 487 in 2014 and 624 in 2015. Meghalaya reported 84 cases involving juveniles. The figure was 57 in Arunachal Pradesh, followed by Mizoram (53), Tripura (25), Nagaland (18) and Manipur (10).

Source - The Telegraph

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