By Ujwal Jalali

New Delhi, Nov 19 (IANS): Delhi has witnessed a heart-wrenching incident on October 19 when a 22-year-old woman was stabbed seven times by a man just near to her house, raising questions over the safety of women in the national capital.

What was more unfortunate was the man who killed the woman was her friend. Profusely bleeding due to the stab wounds, the woman was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead. She died because of excessive blood loss.

The incident is one of the many gruesome crimes that happen almost every day in the national capital. In another incident, the body of a girl was found in an unclothed state on October 3 at a park in northeast Delhi.

Even Delhi Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana recently instructed all Deputy Commissioners of the districts to review all pending crime-against-women cases and ensure that charge-sheet in these cases are filed within a mandated period.

But what do the figures say?

The crime against women in the national capital continued to show an upward trajectory, compared to the last year's data.

According to the data compiled by the Delhi Police, 1,725 women have been allegedly raped in the current year till October 31 in the city.

In 2020, 1,429 women had to face the heinous crime till the same period. Comparing the data with the last year, there has been an increase of 20 per cent.

The crime of assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty (Section 354 of the IPC), has too soared with 2,157 cases being registered so far in comparison to the 2,186 cases for the whole 2020.

Last year, till this time, the city has witnessed 1,791 cases of the same crime.

In another surprising number, over 3,000 women have been so far kidnapped in the national capital, raising serious concerns about the safety of the women.

As per the data, 3,117 women have been kidnapped till now, way more than last year's 2,226 kidnappings for the first 10 months.

In 2020, the crime of kidnapping was faced by 2,761 women.

It is not just the strangers who harm a woman, there is a whopping number of cases cruelty by husband or in-laws and this year the figures have increased drastically by 93.78 per cent.

This year, there have been 3,742 cases of cruelty against women by their husbands, or in-laws, till now.

Last year, the data stood at 1,931. Even the century-old malpractice of dowry took lives of 114 women this year in comparison to 94 in 2020.

Last year, the total number of crime against woman stood at 7,948 which has increased to 11,527 this year .

In total, the crime against women has increased by massive 45 per cent in the national capital in just (past) 10 months.

Apart from the crime against women, the overall rate of the heinous crime has increased by 1.12 per cent in the city.

The city saw a rise in robbery cases by 13 per cent, 1,829 robberies, in comparison to the last year's 1,606 incidents.

The murder cases have dropped this year, compared to the last year's data. The only area which saw a drastic drop was the number of riot cases which were 58 -- way less than last year's 688 cases.

Notably, the national capital witnessed deadly communal riots last year in the month of February which was the reason of such high number of cases.

Commissioner Asthana during the recent crime review meeting has given a slew of directions to the officers that can possibly next year bring down the numbers to a satisfactory level.