The parliamentary panel on empowerment of women submitted its report ‘Women in Detention & Access to Justice’ in Lok Sabha on December 23. As per the report, over 90% of custodial rapes in the country have been reported in Uttar Pradesh.
-Uttar pradesh reported 95 cases of custodial rape, followed by two from Uttarakhand and one each from Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.
-However, the number of cases declined dramatically in 2016 (the latest period for which NCRB data is available), with 11 of the total 26 custodial rapes reported from UP.
Uttar pradesh also reported the highest incidents of deaths of women inmates in prison for three consecutive years. While 340 deaths were reported in 2013, the number came down to nine and 10 respectively in 2014 and 2015.
-Expression concern over higher incidence of such cases, the committees were of the view that police brutality during custody is one of the several forms of police misconduct, which assumes grave proportions when it is perpetrated against the weaker and vulnerable sections of the society.
-The state also reported the maximum cases of rape in 2016. Of the 38,947 cases, 4,816 were reported from UP.
Measures: The parliamentary panel recommended installing CCTV cameras for better surveillance and supervision to ensure effective prison management and inspection of police stations by superior officers. It also flagged the issues of overcrowding and shortage of medical staff to attend to women inmates in jails.
