Odisha at 6th position in number of gang rape cases in India

Odisha has earned a dubious distinction by registering 82 gang rape cases in 2014.

Recent NCRB report placed Odisha at the sixth position among 28 states and seven union territories in India.

The number of rape cases, categorized as a violent form of crime, soared to 1,978 last year from 1,832 registered in 2013, revealed the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report.

The NCRB data stated that the rape accused in 99% of the cases were acquaintances of the survivors. “Of the 1,978 rape cases, the accused were known to the girls in 1,976,” the report added.

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On January 20, 2014, the ruling BJD was left red-faced after Srinath Soren, the party’s Udala MLA from 2009 to 2014, was booked for gang rape in Mayurbhanj district. A woman had lodged a police complaint, alleging that she paid Rs 1 lakh to Soren for the job of a peon in a government department. “Soren called me to his residence in Udala, where he and another man gang-raped me,” she had alleged. Soren had denied the charges and said it was a conspiracy against him.

The alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old girl in Nayagarh attracted lot of attention. She alleged that her boyfriend lured her to a forest, where three of his friends joined him and gang-raped her, on February 13, 2014. The girl and her boyfriend were from Bhubaneswar. The commissionerate of police arrested four persons. “In most cases, the crime took place following breach of trust between couples and false promise of marriage,” a police officer said.

The report stated, 19,088 cases of cognisable offence have been reported in the State in 2014, out of which 1,450 are murder cases. But the shocking part is of the murder cases, 413 are dowry death cases which is 28% of the figure.

It noted that 14,606 cases of crime against women were reported in 2014 as against 14,173 in 2013.