West Bengal reports a large number of cases of crime like kidnapping where most of them lead to human trafficking or murder, especially of minors. They are generally enticed by the offers of a better life by trusted neighbor or swayed by a confession of love.
The most recent,
Baguihati double murder case has brought more attention to this increasing
trend of murder and kidnapping where the police assumed the kids ran off on their
own accord and didn’t dig deeper.
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| Prime accuse of the Baguihati double murder case [Photo Courtesy: google/telegraph India] |
As per the
reports published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2022, around
75% of the people kidnapped were from West Bengal, which was also declared the
safest state in India at the same time.
The past 2 years
saw a staggering increase in the number of crimes against minors especially
kidnapping and murder in the city of West Bengal. Among these, the district of
South 24 Parganas reported the highest numbers in terms of kidnapping of minors,
especially girls.
Investigations
led by the police revealed and busted one of the biggest rackets involving the
trafficking of minor girls. It was disclosed that over 2000 minor girls from
Bengal were trafficked under the guise of ‘domestic help placement agency’ to
Delhi, where local contacts sold the children for Rs. 5000 each.
West Bengal
ranked 4th in the country in terms of crimes against minors with a
total of 10,248 cases of crime against children being reported by the NBRC for
the year 2020.
On February 7,
2022, Diamond Harbour police rescued a minor from Nurpur. Eight people were
arrested for allegedly trafficking and selling her to a brothel in East
Midnapore.
There had been
another case of an apparent human trafficking ring in 2021 in a government
school in Bankura where the principal of the school along with 6 other people
were arrested for their alleged involvement with a trafficking ring.
On March 2021, a five year old boy was
kidnapped from Basanti, South 24 parganas.
Getting deeper into the statistics, NCRB has reported 16,130 still missing children (inclusive of untraced children of previous years) and 84 trafficked victims inclusive of all gender and all age groups.
Apart from this, 11 rape cases with more than 100 assault cases on women; 135 attempt to murder and 45 murder cases have also been reported still we get to hear lines like “such incidents are more common in UP, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh side.” This year, itself has seen 25 alleged political murders and around 15 alleged rape cases.
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| Comparison of crimes in different states in 2021 [Photo Courtesy: google/TimesofIndia] |
The West Bengal government has claimed time and time
again that the state is a safe place to live in, but is it really? The
Political Crimes, Crimes against Women and Crime against minors are on a steady
rise.
All the information above is from the data provided
by the state to the NCRB but what about the 2018 case where no information was
submitted and the situation of 2014-16 where only 1 case was reported each
year.
In the latest report, as most of the cases have seen
a downfall in their crime rates, West Bengal has reported an increase by 63% as
compared to the year 2018.
Authors:
Enakshi Ganguly
Garima Dhanania
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