Mumbai: Crimes against women saw a huge dip during COVID-19 lockdown

Rape cases in the city dipped by 106 per cent during the lockdown period while post lockdown these cases grew by 95 per cent. Representation pic

The lockdown due to COVID-19 helped curb crimes in the city from March 2020, but as unlock began, crimes also got unlocked, as per Mumbai police data. Crime against women such as rape, molestation and chain snatchings reduced drastically during the lockdown, but grew almost more than 100% since the unlock.

House breaking incidents too reduced by 41% during the lockdown and increased by 43% post lockdown. Representation pic

The nationwide lockdown was imposed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The unlocking began from June 2020, and it took a couple of months for things to get normalised. mid-day accessed the crime statistics of the city in three parts, pre-lockdown (November 2020 to March 2020), during the lockdown (April 2020 to August 2020) and post lockdown (September 2020 to January 2021) and found the highest dip and rise were observed in crimes against women.

Rape cases dipped by 106% during the lockdown period while post lockdown these cases grew by 95%. A similar trend is observed with molestation cases which dipped by almost 192% and increased by 141% post lockdown.

"As far as crime against women is concerned, this trend explains everything. More people staying indoors reduces the crime against women. But, does this mean women and girls should stay indoors to avoid crime against them? Certainly not," said former Director General of Police Praveen Dixit. He also presented another point. "We miss out one important aspect here that domestic violence had increased during the lockdown period. Many NGOs and institutes conducted surveys on this, but as most such cases go unreported, we don't get a real picture of it," he added.

Murder cases dipped during lockdown at 25% and increased post lockdown by 29%. Cases of attempt to murder also reduced by 47.61% during lockdown while a 63% increase was observed post lockdown. The major body offence which came under check is theft. In the lockdown it reduced by a whopping 237%.