Crimes against children across India increased by 16.2 per cent between 2020 and 2021, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.
Last year, the nation reported 1,49,404 cases of crime against children across all states and Union Territories compared to 1,28,531 cases in the previous year.
Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of crime cases against children (19,173), followed by Maharashtra (17,261) and Uttar Pradesh (16,838). Among the Union Territories, Delhi topped the list with 7,118 cases of crime against children. Nagaland reported the lowest number of cases of crime against children (51) in 2021, according to the data.
"The crime rate registered per lakh children population is 33.6 in 2021 in comparison with 28.9 in 2020," the report stated.
A majority of these crime cases were related to kidnapping and abduction and sexual assault.
As per the report, there has been an increase in cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. 36.05 per cent of the crime cases against children in 2021 were under POCSO (53,874). There were 47,221 POCSO cases out of 1,28,531 cases of crime against children in 2020 (36.73 per cent) and 47,335 of 1,48,185 such cases in 2019 (31.94 per cent).
In 2021, the largest number of cases registered under POCSO was in Uttar Pradesh (7,129) followed by Maharashtra (6,200), Madhya Pradesh (6,070), Tamil Nadu (4,465) and Karnataka (2,813).