It was just a few months ago when a young girl was murdered in East Jaintia Hills. Before that crime could be solved another similar incident happened a few days ago. Once an FIR is filed and a rape or murder is reported, the media too usually does not follow up on a case. Since media follow-up is weak the police take things lightly. It is rare for the police in Meghalaya to arrive at any conviction on rape and murder cases. It’s almost as if no one has killed the young girls and/or the killer has just disappeared from the scene. The question then is whether we have a credible police force that public can rely on to carry out its work dutifully. In fact, a time has come when the police should be asked as to why conviction rates in Meghalaya are so woefully low. Between January to August 2020 there were 44 cases of rape , 16 cases of attempted rape and 194 cases of other crimes against women. There were 36 POCSO cases (sexual assault against children) in the same period. We are looking at reported cases. Also the cases above are for 8 months – January to August 2020 which also happen to be the months under lockdown when filing police complaints might have been more difficult as it involves travelling from the villages to a police outpost which is several kilometres away.
It was a revelation to learn that the Madanrting Police had to rush all the way to Syntung when tourists were attacked and one tourist died as a result, two years ago. The distance between Syntung and Madanrting is 58 kilometres and takes anything between 2.5 to 3 hours to reach. Clearly there is a huge policing vacuum in Meghalaya if police stations are so distant from villages.
In October last year the NCRB published a report that Meghalaya has done fairly well in terms of conviction rates on crimes against women. The figure shown is 57.3 %. Conviction rate is the ratio of convictions to cases prosecuted. But much depends on how many cases were actually charge-sheeted and led to conviction. For instance, if there were 10 cases that were charge-sheeted and 5 reached conviction that would make it 50% conviction rate. Studies show that if only the strongest cases are prosecuted the conviction rates would be high. Any system that pays attention to conviction rates, as opposed to the actual number of convictions, is liable to abuse, scholars opine. The conviction rates alone without the numbers, does not tell the real story.
In Meghalaya we have had the Civil Society Women’s Organisation (CSWO) diligently following up cases of violence against women but when the head of the Organisation is herself attacked and there is no conviction of the criminals as yet, then police have not been doing their job.