The country has witnessed a marginal decline in crimes against Dalits in 2015 compared to the previous year with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar reporting almost half of such cases.
Similarly, there is a decline in the crimes against Scheduled Tribes too.
According to the latest statistics available with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), there were 45,003 cases of crimes against people belonging to the Scheduled Castes in 2015 as against 47,064 the previous year, a 4.37% decline. In 2013, there were 39, 408 cases. Of the total incidents last year, 707 were cases of murder (704 in 2014), 1,007 were for causing grievous injuries (2,155 in 204) and kidnapping 687 (755 in 2014).
Though the crime rate in general has come down, incidents targeting Dalit women were on the rise. Last year, 2,326 cases of rape were reported as against 2,233 incidents in 2014 and 2,073 in 2013.
Similarly, there were 2,800 cases of assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty last year, as against 2,346 the previous year.
Fifty-eight cases of charges under insult to modesty of women were reported in 2015 as against 56 in 2014.
An area of concern is the slow rate at which cases are being decided and the police filing charge sheets. Though several reasons are being cited, lack of manpower is one of the causes for the delay in finalising the cases. In 2015, there were convictions only in 4,702 cases, while it was 5,102 the previous year and 4,334 in 2013.
In these cases, 9,656 people were convicted last year, down from 10,562 in 2014.
The police also managed to file charge sheets in 31,852 cases, despite the drop in registration of incidents.
As many as 34,163 charge sheets were filed in 2014 and 26,270 in 2013. According to MHA figures, 75,854 people were arrested as against 79,031 in 2014 and 70,050 in 2013.
In the case of Scheduled Tribes, there were 10,914 cases last year as against 11,451 in 2014 and 6,793 in 2015.