By IANS
New Delhi : Despite a marginal decline in criminal offences, Delhi continued to be India’s crime capital in 2007. A whopping 53,244 criminal cases – including 467 murders, 581 rapes, 1764 dacoity and other heinous crimes – were registered in the city during the year.
During the year, the capital also emerged more bloodthirsty compared to 2006 when 462 murders had taken place.
The 467 murders in 2007 meant Delhi registered 1.08 percent more killings than the previous year, according to Delhi Police annual crime statistics.
The police, however, sought to obfuscate the rising graph of murders in Delhi, claiming a decline in the killings on the basis of murders per 100,000 of the city population.
“The murder cases in Delhi continue to be on decline since the year 2000. The number has declined from 4.16 per 100,000 of city population in 2000 to 2.79 in 2007,” said Delhi Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal.
Dadwal, however, admitted: “In absolute numbers, there has been an increase of five in murders from 462 in 206 to 467 in 207.”
The cases of attempted murders also rose by 1.22 percent in 2007.
“We registered 499 attempt-to-murder cases as compared to 493 in 2006, but working out of such cases went up to 94.39 percent from 93.10 percent in 2006,” he said.
The city police commissioner told the annual year-end press conference that despite increase in the murder cases, crime rate in the capital has fallen by 3.2 percent.
“A total of 53,244 cases under Indian Penal Code (IPC) were registered in 2007 as compared to 55,125 cases in 2006. There is a decrease of 1881 or 3.41 percent cases,” Dadwal said.
In 2007, the capital appeared to be marginally better place for women with a slight decline in rape cases.
The police commissioner told newspersons that 581 rape cases were registered in 2007 against 609 in 2006.
“The decline in the number of rape cases has been 4.60 percent. At the same time, the working-out ratio of rape cases has gone up to 95.18 percent in 2007 as compared to 93.92 percent in 2006.”
Dadwal said cases of kidnapping for ransom have also decreased sharply.
“There was a sharp decline by 25 percent in kidnapping for ransom cases. As against 32 cases in 2006, there were 24 cases in 2007. At the same time, there has been a 100 percent success in solving such cases as against 75 percent in 2006,” Dadwal said.
Dadwal said riot cases too came down to 83 from 88 in 2006. “The success rate in solving riot cases was better at 92.77 percent when compared to 85.23 percent in 2006.”
“We have also noticed a sharp decline in vehicles theft cases. A total of 8,622 cases occurred during 2006; 8,039 cases have been registered in 2007,” he added.
Dadwal said terrorism has been a major area of concern and in 2006 sleuths of Special Cell had apprehended 19 militants belonging to various terror outfits, including Lashker-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islamia (HuJI).
“We have neutralized four terrorists in joint operations with the army and Jammu and Kashmir police.”
Lauding his officials for quality of investigation, Dadwal said the good work has resulted not only in an impressive detection rate but also in working out of a large number of sensational, blind and complicated cases.
“The conviction rate increased substantially from 55 percent to 65 percent in 2007,” he said.