Crime rate up by ten per cent in Maharashtra

Pune, Aug 4 (UNI) The overall crime rate in Maharashtra has gone up by ten per cent, specially crime against children and women, as per the tenth Annual Report on 'Crime in Maharashtra-2007' of the State Crime Investigation Department (CID), released by the State Home Minister R R Patil here today.

Cases of rape against teenaged victims from the state has seen a fall of 9.03 per cent during 2007 but there is sharp increase of 19.29 in similar nature of crime against those below 10 years. In Overall crime against women, there is increase of 3.51 per cent with Mumbai topping the state for sharing highest number of these offences.

There have been a total 1409 cases reported against women from Mumbai, while Aurangabad (30.07 percent) topped for highest rate of such crimes.

Maharashtra's crime rate is down by 1.6 per cent as against previous year. Taking cue from these statistics, Patil said, ''Maharashtra is safer than many other states, while Mumbai's crime scene is better compared to cities like Paris, New York and London''. According to the report, 92.48 per cent cases against women are pending in various courts in the state.

The report also indicates that conviction rate in Maharashtra is worse than other state. As per the report, the conviction rate during 2007 was 11.1 per cent. According to Crime in India report, Maharashtra lags behind other states like Bihar (15.2 percent), Orissa (14.9 percent) in conviction rate.

Patil, while commenting on conviction rate, said that there is need to increase conviction. ''Our department will soon take opinion from judicial experts to work out plan on increasing the conviction rate''.

The Minister also attributed the growing offences in the state to reasons like increasing population and poverty. The growing use of computer and internet for white collar crimes has also seen increase of 2.8 per cent.

The Minister said he would like the CID to have a better rate of detection and conviction next year and also promised media that next year, a section in the crime report, would carry information on all the criminal cases against various political parties in the state.

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