Crimes against women constituted three percent of the total crimes, while 28 incidents of rape, murder and torture against women took place everyday in the country, said a report of Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), here on Wednesday.
The crime rate against women in Punjab is 79 percent, while in Sindh 12 percent, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan have the lowest ratio like 6 percent and 1 percent respectively, the FAFEN crime monitoring report revealed.
The frequently reported crime against women was kidnapping, abduction or to compel a woman to marry, around 304 FIRs were registered in 55 districts monitored by FAFEN.
Rape was the second highest crime against women as 186 FIRs, while honour killings, which as per common perception, occur in remote rural communities with a feudal social set-up, were also observed in an urban district ie, Faisalabad, where two cases of honour killings were reported.
The report revealed that as many as 29,505 FIRs were registered in 55 districts monitored by FAFEN during April 2011. Serious crimes like murder and rape were frequently reported in urban districts of the country. The highest numbers of FIRs regarding murder (98) were registered in Karachi while the district of Lahore reported the highest number of rape cases (29).
Crimes against women are generally regarded as the outcome of certain socially sanctioned prejudices against women, especially in rural and largely inaccessible tribal areas. However, the data suggests that these might be prevalent in developed urban centers of the country as well. During April 2011 most numbers of crimes against women were reported in Lahore.
In order to collect crime statistics, FAFEN governance monitors visited offices of the District Police Officers (DPO) in 55 districts in April 2011. Of these, 23 districts were monitored in Punjab, 14 in KP, 12 in Sindh, five each in Balochistan and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
Patterns of reportage varied across different regions in the country. More than half of all FIRs filed against each category of crime were lodged in the DPO offices monitored in Punjab. On average, each monitored district of Punjab recorded a total of 1,069 FIRs. Sindh, ICT and KP followed with an average of 209, 205 and 136 FIRs, respectively. With an average of 58 FIRs in each monitored district, Balochistan emerged as the province with the least number of reported crimes. On the whole, more districts (23) were monitored in Punjab. The region is also more densely populated, which may be a factor in the number of FIRs. While the high numbers of crime of all categories in Punjab is matter of concern, it also shows better reportage and increased level of trust between the people and public institutions. Similarly, lower numbers of registered crimes in other regions did not imply that crimes are less prevalent, but could indicate reluctance of police to record crimes, lack of public trust in law enforcement organisations, or a preference for parallel justice systems like jirgas or panchayats. It was noted that crimes causing physical harm to people made a fifth of all FIRs registered in the country in April 2011. These included murder and attempt to murder, which together made 47% of all FIRs registered against physical harm across the country. On average, 22 FIRs were registered against murder cases per day in the 49 monitored districts.
A quarter of all reported crimes in April were related to property with a total of 7,329 FIRs registered in the monitored districts nation-wide. Region-wise, monitored districts of Punjab reported 90% of these FIRs followed by 7% in Sindh and 1% each in KP, Balochistan and ICT.
The number of registered crimes of threat and fraud was 2,540 (9% of the total). Districts monitored in Punjab reported an overwhelming 92% of these crimes, while the regions of Sindh, KPK and Balochistan respectively reported 5%, 2% and 1% of the total such FIRs. No FIR was reportedly registered against any of the crimes in this category in ICT during April 2011.