New Delhi: Data released by the National Crime Records Bureau showed that there had been an increase of 5.5% and 4.6% in crimes and atrocities against the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) respectively during 2016.

The data, released on Thursday, showed that there had been a total of 40,801 incidents of crime reported against the SCs in 2016 in comparison to 38,670 and 40,401 incidents reported in 2015 and 2014 respectively. Similarly, 6,568 incidences of crime were reported against ST in 2016 as a comparison to 6,276 and 6,827 reported in 2015 and 2014 respectively.

With 10,426 cases, Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of atrocity cases against Scheduled Castes (SCs) accounting for 25.6% of all incidents against SCs. UP was followed by Bihar with 5,701 cases and Rajasthan with 5,134 cases during 2016.

Madhya Pradesh with 1,823 cases reported the highest number of cases of atrocities against Scheduled Tribes (STs) accounting for 27.8% of the overall cases followed by Rajasthan with 1,195 cases and Odisha with 681 cases during 2016.

Cases of Crime Against Women have also reported an increase of 2.9% in 2016 over 2015. A majority of cases under crimes against women were reported under ‘Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives’ (32.6%) followed by ‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ (25.0%), ‘Kidnaping & Abduction of Women’ (19.0%) and ‘Rape’ (11.5%). The worst-performing state in this regard was Uttar Pradesh, with 49,262 cases of crimes against women followed by West Bengal with 32,513 cases during 2016. Delhi UT reported the highest crime rate (160.4) compared to the national average rate of 55.2.

Rape cases have reported an increase of 12.4% from 34,651 cases in 2015 to 38,947 in 2016. Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh reported the highest incidence of Rape with 4,882 cases (12.5%) and 4,816 (12.4%) followed by Maharashtra 4,189 (10.7%) during 2016.

Crimes against children have also shown a significant increase of 13.6% (1,06,958) in 2016.