Fact check: Does UP have the highest conviction rate for women related crimes

New delhi, Oct 10: Even as the Hathras case in which a lady was allegedly gang raped continues to centre around the debate, there is a claim that Uttar Pradesh has the highest conviction rate when it comes to crimes against women.

It is claimed that uP has a 55.2 per cent conviction rate when it comes to crimes against women. This claim is however not right and according to statistics of the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB), UP has the 5th highest conviction rate in the country.

The NCRB 2019 data defines the conviction rate as the ratio of the number of convictions carried out by courts in the state and the number of cases where trials were concluded.

NCRB provided a breakdown of cases where the conviction was done in cases from previous years and those in 2019, a breakdown is also provided of the cases going to trial.

But such a breakdown is not provided for the cases where the trial was concluded, which is the sum of cases convicted, acquitted and discharged, making it tough to isolate a conviction rate for cases where the trial was concluded solely for 2019.

In previous year, UP has similar or higher conviction rates (according to the corresponding years' NCRB reports, the data being available since 2016) that is 52.6 per cent in 2016 (5,795 convictions to 11,007 cases in which trials were concluded) 66.4 per cent in 2017 (9,031 convictions to 13,606 cases) 60.3 per cent in 2018 (8,805 convictions to 14,604 cases).

The states and UTs) with conviction rates higher that UP, however, are much smaller in area - they are Puducherry, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya and thus have much smaller bases.

Puducherry has a 100 per cent conviction rate according to the data, but it has witnessed only 9 convictions.

Mizoram saw 88 per cent conviction rate with 98 convictions out of a total 111 cases.

The UP Directorate of Prosecutions tweeted the number of convictions and the conviction rate with the added caveat that UP's conviction rate was among the highest among "bigger comparable" states in India.

State Conviction Rate Convictions Cases Finished Trial

1. Puducherry 100.0% 9 9
2. Mizoram 88.3% 98 111
3. Manipur 58.0% 29 50
4. Meghalaya 57.3% 405 707
5. UP 55.2% 8,059 14,610
6. Uttarakhand 50.6% 577 1,140