Data: Are Crimes Against Scheduled Castes On An Upswing In India?

The gang-rape of two Dalit sisters in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh not only highlights the atrocities committed against women but also against people belonging to scheduled castes. According to media reports, the two girls, who were cousins, went missing from their house on Tuesday night. Their bodies were found hanging from a mango tree in the village. It has sparked outrage across the country with the National Commission of Women taken suo moto cognisance of the incident. This is not the first time such incidents have occurred. IndiaSpend decided to look at cases registered under various crime heads against scheduled castes as per data

compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau, and here are the points. The data set has been broken into ten segments starting from murder, rape, kidnapping & abduction, dacoity, robbery, arson etc (refer table below) and is over the period 2001-2012. The data we are looking at is for rape cases, which are up 20% to 1,576 cases in 2012 from 1,316 cases in 2001. Rape cases accounted for 4.7% of total crimes against scheduled castes in 2012. Kidnapping & abduction and "other crimes against SCs" are the two heads which have increased 23% and 16% , respectively in a decade.