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Rape, murder or even terror, Bangalore is the new sin city

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Aravind Gowda
Aravind GowdaDec 22, 2014 | 16:03

Rape, murder or even terror, Bangalore is the new sin city

Is Bangalore, once called the "Garden City" of India, emerging as the “crime capital” of the country? If the recent spate of crimes, particularly those against women, minors in schools and racial attacks on people from the Northeast are taken into consideration, Bangalore seems to be vying for the inglorious title. Adding a new dimension to this is the arrest of a Bangalore-based engineer, who tweeted on behalf of the dreaded terrorist outfit Islamic State (IS) until the British media exposed him.

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While a lot is being speculated about the IS sympathiser, the focus on routine crime seems to have taken a back seat for now among Bangaloreans. The statistics of this year’s crime is a bit shocking. In the last nine months, as many as ten girls, all minors, have been sexually abused or raped in reputed schools in the city and elsewhere. There have been five instances of racial abuse/attack on people from Northeastern states in the last three months and many cases of rape.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and home minister KJ George are firefighting on a daily basis with the opposition BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) contending that the crime rate goes up whenever the Congress assumes power in the state. The Opposition have taken to the streets, alleging a politician-police nexus for the increase in crime rate in Karnataka, particularly in Bangalore.

While former CM BS Yeddyurappa has made this a political issue, the repercussions are all over the state. The fight between the Congress and the BJP turned so ugly that former deputy CM KS Eshwarappa was castigated for his statement that the government would wake up from its slumber if the daughter of any of the ministers was raped. Taking politics to a new low, Congress MLA (Ivan D’Souza) had threatened to rape Eshwarappa’s wife. Though both apologised later, it did not change the scenario even a bit.

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The crimes against minors in schools saw the government shunting out six senior police officers, including then commissioner of police of Bangalore.

The government tried to discipline the schools by evolving guidelines to ensure safety of students in schools, but the same is still pending as the High Court of Karnataka has made a few suggestions. Now, the government has proposed to create a database of sexual offenders in schools.

According to data provided by the National Crime Records (NCRB), in 2013, Bangalore ranked third after Delhi and Mumbai in the number of crimes against women. The data for 2014 is not yet available and going by what happened this year, the city is likely to move up the ladder. Last year, 2,608 cases of crime against women were registered in Bangalore (population of eight point five million) alone. The statistics for the first half of 2014 is even more worrying with as many as 476 rape cases being reported between January and June with 325 of the victims being minors. Though the government claims that the police were quick in nabbing the accused, little is heard about their conviction.

Even as the government was battling the rising incidents of crimes against women, a spate of attacks on North-easterners has rocked Bangalore. Even the daughter of Karnataka’s former DGP HT Sangliana was not spared — she became a victim of racial abuse. Apart from the argument that crimes are not being prevented, there are several other observations. Bangalore is growing as a cosmopolitan city and accordingly crime rate is going up. This is common to any growing city as policing becomes difficult with large scale migration of people in large numbers to urban centres. The enforcement agencies are of the view that as laws have been tightened, more number of people are now gaining courage to approach the police.

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Another interesting observation has been the influence of social media on policing. All the top police officers are now on Twitter and responding quickly to incidents. People are utilising the platform effectively to bring to lodge complaints directly to officers rather than visiting stations. The best part is that they are seeing immediate results and this is an incentive for the others to directly approach an officer using social media tools.

Last updated: December 22, 2014 | 16:03
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