Effective monitoring reduced time taken to investigate rape cases in Raj: DGP

According to Lather, 28,832 girl students were given self defence training last year.He said the state government has allocated Rs 5 crore for increasing the number of women and child desks in 500 police stations.Sharing crime statistics of last year, Lather said the rate of filing a challan in courts in cases of serious nature was 97-99 per cent despite a marginal increase in the number of cases.

The time taken to investigate a rape case in Rajasthan has come down significantly as a result of effective monitoring, state police chief M L Lather said on Monday.

In 2017-18, it took 274 days on an average to probe a rape case which reduced to 126 days in 2019-20, the director general of police said, adding that efforts are being made to further reduce the duration.

"A special unit was set up for monitoring crimes against women in every district and effective monitoring of such cases was done. As a result of this, the duration of investigating rape cases has reduced in Rajasthan," he said at a press conference here.

In most cases of sexual offence, involvement of someone known to the victim was found and the police along with other departments has conducted awareness programmes, Lather said.

"A campaign on action against women related crime and awareness for justice was started in October last year to make girls d women aware about sexual offences… Self defence training is also being provided to girls in educational institutions," he said. According to Lather, 28,832 girl students were given self defence training last year.

He said the state government has allocated Rs 5 crore for increasing the number of women and child desks in 500 police stations.

Sharing crime statistics of last year, Lather said the rate of filing a challan in courts in cases of serious nature was 97-99 per cent despite a marginal increase in the number of cases. He said cases registered in 2020 under IPC were 14.21 per cent less than 2019. Murder cases increased by 3.62 per cent and attempt to murder cases rose by 8.24 per cent while the number of abduction cases reduced by 22.64 per cent.

Lather informed that the state government had in June last year made it mandatory to register FIRs in police stations. It also made a provision for FIR registration in the offices of the superintendents of police in case it was not registered at a police station.

Lather said, "200 FIRs were registered in SP offices but of them only 18 FIRs were such which were not registered by a police station. In the rest of the cases, the complainant directly approached the SP offices." The number of cases, which were registered through Istgasa on the direction of courts, has also come down by 11 per cent in 2020 from 24 per cent in 2018, he said.

Lather said the number of road accidents and deaths reduced and the COVID-19 lockdown was a key reason behind it.

The police chief action was taken against the mafia and illegal arms smugglers in the state and more illegal firearms and narcotics substances were seized in 2020 as compared to 2019.

He said barring the violence in tribal regions of Dungarpur and Udaipur, the law and order situation in the state remained peaceful in 2020.

Violence had erupted in September when the candidates of teachers' recruitment examination-2018 blocked a highway, pelted stones at police, damaged several properties and torched vehicles demanding filling of 1,167 vacant posts of general quota with ST candidates.

The top cop said action on violation of COVID-19-related guidelines were also taken under the MV act, epidemic diseases ordinance-2020 etc. This includes 3,872 FIRs and 7,284 arrests for violating prohibitory orders/quarantine norms, he said.