When the final word on alleged gangrape at Kunduli is yet to be spoken out following the ongoing SIT investigation, the worrying fact that stares at the State is Koraput in the last half a decade has emerged as the ‘rape’ capital of Odisha by virtue of having the highest rate of crime in rapes.
Bhubaneswar, the State Capital, has piped Koraput for the first time in 2017 with a rate of rape crime at a mind boggling 27.5.
Such stunning facts about crime against women have come to the fore as the Odisha police have recently released the ‘Crime 2017’ report.
According to the report, rapes in Odisha in 2017 have risen by a moderate 3.6 per cent in 2017. But the sub-State analysis pops out more disconcerting details. Though case wise Mayurbhanj again has topped the chart in the ‘disgraceful’ list , astounding rise in rape cases in Bhubaneswar and Ganjam emerged as the pick of the ‘dubious’ list. And showing a consistency of sort, Koraput has emerged as the ‘rape’ capital of Odisha by virtue of maintaining a rate of rape crime of a high of around 15 per lakh women – which means of every one lakh women in Koraput, 15 women keep filing rape cases there.
In contrast, the rate of crime of rapes in Odisha as a whole has been around 10.4, up from 9.4 in 2016. It has been observed that since 2012 – 2017, the number of rape cases in Koraput has been in the range of 105-120.
Koraput in 2017 has recorded around 117 rape cases. However, in 2017, Koraput seemingly has got a competitor in the guise of State capital Bhubaneswar, which has recorded a humungous 62 per cent jump in rape cases registered to touch 125 in 2017 vis-a-vis around 77 in 2016. It also topped the State with a rate of rape crime of around 27.5 for the first time in commissionerate police history. Even, the largest district of State, Ganjam, too had recorded a spurt in rape cases in 2017 by a whopping 71 per cent but in rate of rape crime, it figured among the bottom districts with a rate of rape crime of mere 5.3 per cent.
“How the rape crime is of monstrous nature is determined by its rate of crime, not by cases. The higher the rate of rape crime, the worse is the scenario of crime against women in the district,” explained a senior police official in the State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB).
An analysis shows that Odisha has around 7-8 police districts that record maximum rape cases in the State, and it is these districts that have propelled the rape cases upwards in 2017 as Odisha has recorded around 2, 221 rape cases against 2,144 in 2016. Data reveals when Sambalpur has posted around 16 per cent rise in 2017, Rourkela recorded a jump of 41 per cent. But the surprise district in 2017 was Boudh as it saw a 61 per cent jump in rape cases recorded to touch 37.
Since the rate of spurt in Boudh is far higher than rate of growth in women population, rate of rape crime in Boudh has recorded a steep rise in 2017.