Kolkata one of the safest cities for women, says NCRB data

Kolkata: Kolkata has come up as one of the safest cities in the country for women out of the 19 cities to record least number of alleged sexual assault cases and "zero" cases of sexual harassment. This comes as per the recently released 2019's data of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

The NCRB data shows that only 14 cases of alleged sexual assault, under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), were recorded in Kolkata in 2019 and there was no cases of "attempt to commit rape", under Section 376 read with 511 of the IPC.

Only Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Bihar's Patna are the two cities that recorded a lesser number of sexual assault cases. There was only one such case at Coimbatore while the figure was just one less than that of Kolkata, that is 13, in Patna. But the number of cases of sexual harassment was 12 in Patna which is zero for both Kolkata and Coimbatore.

This comes when BJP leadership in Bengal raises questions about women security in the state and the entire country's focus is at Hathras in BJP-run Uttar Pradesh where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped by four people, left to die without treatment for 15 days and the brutality ended with policemen who allegedly cremated the woman's last remains locking up her parents in their house.

The NCRB record shows that 59 cases of rape have taken place at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh in 2019, though Delhi tops the list with 1,231 cases. Rajasthan's Jaipur comes in the second position in terms of higher number of sexual assault cases with 517 such incidents were reported and in 90 out of these cases victims are of below 18 years. The city also recorded the highest number of cases of sexual harassment that is 15.

Another metropolitan city, Mumbai, recorded 394 cases of sexual assault and three incidents of sexual harassment.

The NCRB data also revealed that all the victims those lodged complaint alleging sexual assault in Kolkata in 2019 were above 18 years.

According to a senior police officer, better policing is one of the reasons behind Kolkata being safe for women along with well aware city

dwellers who even did not think twice to come forward to help people even by risking their lives as the city has witnessed in a recent incident in its southern fringes.