NEW DELHI, Sep 17: Cases of all sorts of crimes against women in matrilineal Meghalaya are highest among the peer states of Northeastern region and it is rising, according to a latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The hill state reported 568 cases of crimes against women in 2020, which is much higher than the states with similar population and size like Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh. Only Assam and Tripura with much bigger population have reported more such crimes in the same year.
The number of crimes against women in Meghalaya has also increased from 558 in the previous year, the report said. Most other Northeastern states including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura have reported lesser number of such crimes in the same period.
The highest number of crimes against women was reported from Assam (26,352) in the year gone by. Assam is followed by Tripura (874), Meghalaya (568), Arunachal Pradesh (281), Manipur (247) Mizoram (172), Sikkim (140) and Nagaland (39).
Most such crimes in Meghalaya included rape, kidnapping, outrage of modesty and domestic violence. There were 67 cases of rape alone in Meghalaya in 2020, which is the highest figure, other than Assam and Tripura which have much higher population.
It is an irony that in Meghalaya, where women’s role is supreme in the family, there are a greater number of cases under “cruelty by husband or his relatives.” Several heinous crimes against women including rape and murder in Meghalaya were reported earlier, but this is for the first time a central government study based on records comparing all other peer states has proved it as a fact.
