'Raj Bhavan's statistics on rape & kidnapping not based on any official report, are baseless & misguiding'

Kolkata: Stating that the figures shared by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar over the number of rape and kidnap are not based on any official report, the Bengal government on Monday clearly mentioned that the "allegations are baseless, ill-founded, and misguiding; totally incongruous with authentic facts and figures".

This comes when the Governor has tweeted on Tuesday some figures claiming it to be the number of rapes and kidnapping took place in the state in the month of August.

Giving a reply to the same, the state Home department has tweeted: "Raj Bhavan dissemination of west Bengal "statistics" on rape and kidnapping is not based on any official report, data, or information. Allegations are baseless, ill-founded, and misguiding: totally incongruous with authentic facts and figures."

This comes when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly urged not to spread canard or false information that tarnished the image of Bengal.

According to the experts, usually the crime related data is quoted or considered to be correct only when it is released by any "legitimate authority" that includes the respective state governments or the body like National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

The state government is yet to release any such data for the month of August and NCRB has recently released the all-India level data on crime that took place in 2019. The data released by NCRB shows that Kolkata has come up as one of the safest cities in the country for women as it is the third out of the 19 cities to record least number of alleged sexual assault cases and "zero" cases of sexual harassment.

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.