New Delhi: At a time when the alleged rape of a Spanish travel-blogger in Jharkhand’s Dumka district raised a massive hue and cry, latest government data revealed that as many as 147 crimes of different nature took place against foreigners across India in 2022. Of the total crime, at least 25 rape cases were registered against foreign nationals, including foreign tourists and other foreign nationals in the same year.
According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, a total of 11 cases have been disposed off by police till date whereas investigations against 14 cases are still pending with a pendency percentage of 56.0.
As many as 10 Nepali women became victims of rape cases, followed by five Russian, four women of other Asian countries, USA, Nigeria, South Africa and Australia in 2022.
Of the total 147 crime cases that took place against foreign nationals in different states, Karnataka topped the list with 28 cases followed by Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra with 21 cases each with Goa and Haryana registering 16 each.
Talking to ETV Bharat, former director general of Uttar Pradesh Police and renowned security expert Prakash Singh said that these kind of incidents definitely malign India’s image.
“Yes of course this kind of incident brings a bad image for our country. This incident already had wide publicity not only in Spain but in other European newspapers too,” said Singh. Terming the incident to be shameful, Singh said that the culprits need to be subjected to intensive interrogation.
According to Singh, there should be intensive interrogation on what prompted them to get involved in this kind of crime and what their habits are- especially what they were consuming on the internet.
When asked about slow progress of investigation in such cases, Singh said that the investigation process may be slow “but I won’t say the situation is the same everywhere. In several cases, investigation is done with urgency. However, there is also a space for improvement for that.”
He added that what is important to note primarily is what is motivating the criminals. "Why do such ideas enter into their mind that women are just a piece of flesh and you need to enjoy her. We need to know what is leading to the degradation of the value system. These things need to be examined intensively,” Singh added.
When asked about the impact of Government initiative such as the Nirbhaya scheme to fight against such menaces, Singh hailed the move but said that there is too much pornography available these days which is negatively impacting the minds of the youth and prompting them to commit rapes.
“Once anybody sees these (pornography) things, it affects the thinking process. Moreover, now the OTT platform has come which contains too much intimate scenes. If the government does not control these, they will keep increasing” said Singh.
Echoing the same view, renowned clinical psychologist, Dr Priyanka Srivastava said that psychology plays a key role in this direction. “We need to understand their (accused) upbringing. We need to give them proper sex education,” added Srivastava.
She also emphasised on the role of education and claimed that social media and phones are encouraging rapes. "In fact, the accused are not aware of what they are doing. In many of the cases, once they commit crime like rape, they repent,” said Srivastava.
Stating that sex education should be mandatory in educational institutions, Srivastava said, “Many of the schools in Delhi and NCR are providing sex education classes. However, the family too needs to upbring their child with proper awareness and education.”
She lauded the Nirbhaya scheme but said that its reach to every citizen is also necessary. “Without imparting sex education to children, we will not be able to stop these incidents,” said Srivastava. The government in the parliament recently stated that under the Nirbhaya fund, till the financial year 2023-24, Rs 7212.85 crore has been allocated.
Of the total amount released by the ministries and departments, Rs 5118.91 crore has been utilised since inception which is approximately 70 per cent of the total allocation.
The incident of December 2012, known as the Nirbhaya case, led to protests and demands for better safety measures for women across India. Subsequently, the Central government created a non-lapsable corpus known as the Nirbhaya fund in 2013.
The several ministries of the Government of India including Home Ministry, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Department of Justice, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Ministry of Women and Child Development keep utilising central funds under the Nirbhaya scheme to implement several projects related to women safety.
Some of the major projects that have been implemented in different States unitising Nirbhaya funds include Safe City project for eight cities including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai (Rs 1434.58 crore), Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) (Rs 364.03 crore), Integrated Emergency Response Management System (IERSS) (Rs 313.72 crore), proposal of State-wise Vehicle Tracking Platform (VTP) (Rs 213.88 crore) among others.
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