Third of India's Crime in Akhilesh's UP

Bangalore: Uttar Pradesh cannot easily dodge off its tarnished distinction of persistent criminality even in Akhilesh Yadav’s rule. UP is the most criminal state for yet another year according to the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). About a third of all crimes in India occurred in Uttar Pradesh in 2011, accounting for the highest number of violent crimes and murders, as well as crimes against scheduled castes and tribes, kidnapping, abduction and dowry deaths.

UP accounted for 33.4 percent of total crime reported in country during 2011 followed by Tamil Nadu (11.5 percent), Andhra Pradesh (7.2 percent) and Karnataka (6.7 percent).

Further, it accounted for 22.8 percent of total crimes against Scheduled Castes (7,702 cases) of the total 33,719 cases reported in the country followed by Rajasthan (15.4 percent), Andhra Pradesh (11.9 percent) and Bihar (10.7 percent).

While the crime rate in Andhra declined remarkably from 13.9 percent to 7.2 percent, the rate in Tamil Nadu was noted to go up. The law and order situation in Tamil Nadu has worsened in 2011 in comparison with the previous year. However, the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh will be well justified in their claims of better rule of law in the state.

Uttar Pradesh, though, requires a drastic change in the method of governance. For years now, it has topped the list in several forms of crime. A breakdown of the statistics gives a view of the landscape of crime in India. At 37.2 percent, one third of the crimes in the country in 2011 fit in to the IPC category (those charged under the Indian Penal Code) while the rest were under SLL (special and local laws). As there was a rise of 2.5 percent in IPC crimes compared to last year, the SLL crimes recorded a plunge of 7.5 percent.