New Delhi: Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are the five top states registering a spike in crime against senior citizens in 2019 in comparison to the previous year.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its latest report on Crime in India in 2019 said that as many as 26562 crime against senior citizen took place in 29 states in comparison to 23501 cases in 2018.
Seven Union Territories (UTs) including Delhi also registered a spike in crime against the senior citizens in 2019 in comparison to 2018.
The UTs have registered 842 crime cases in 2018 and 1134 cases in 2019, the NCRB report said.
The report said that Maharastra with 6163 cases in 2019 (5961 in 2018) is leading the list of states followed by 4184 in 2019 in Madhya Pradesh (3967 in 2018), 4088 cases in Gujarat in 2019 (2126 cases in 2018), 2430 cases in Andhra Pradesh in 2019 (1673 in 2018).
Interestingly, Tamil Nadu has witnessed a decrease of crime against the senior citizens in 2019 (2509) in comparison to 2018 (3162 cases).
Crime of all kinds including murder, assault, kidnapping and abduction, theft, extortion robbery took place where the victims were senior citizens above the age group of 60.
Ironically, a total of 4897 cases of crime against senior citizens were registered in 19 metropolitan cities during 2019 as compared to 4230 cases during 2018, showing an increase in the cases by 15.8 per cent during 2019 over 2018.
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Crime head wise revealed that Theft (30.3 per cent, 1482 cases) registered the highest number of cases of crimes against senior citizens followed by forgery, cheating and fraud with 22.5 per cent (1,100 cases) in 2019.
Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai are leading the list of cities with a maximum crime against senior citizens in 2019.
The NCRB data said that Mumbai registered 1231 crime against senior in 2019 in comparison to 1043 in 2018, followed by 1076 in 2019 and 770 in 2018, 794 in Ahmedabad in 2019 against 733 cases in 2018 whereas Chennai registered 552 cases in 2019 and 495 cases in 2018.
It may be mentioned here that Union Home Ministry (MHA) has recently asked all states and UTs to take special precautions to avoid violence against senior citizens through community-level interventions assisted through field agencies of state government.
The Home Ministry in its directives issued to state chief secretaries and UT administrators, also keeping the Covid19 pandemic in mind, suggested measures involving safety and security-related concerns of senior citizens.
The Ministry has asked to strengthen community policing, engaging resident welfare organisations, creation of self-help groups.
Based on the Census 2011, it is estimated that there would be approximately 16 crore senior citizen (aged above 60 years) in the country.
Government data further said that senior citizen between the age group of 60-69 years would be around 8.8 crore followed by senior citizens between the age group of 70-79 years would be around 6.4 crore, assisted elders (above 80 years or people who require medical assistance) would be around 2.8 crore and indigent elders (destitute who are homeless or deserted by the families) would be around 0.18 crore.
