The official date suggests that, among all the major States in India, Utter Pradesh has got the lowest rate of rape.

The latest edition of the annual report of the National Crime Records Bureaus’ publication Crime in India 2009 states that, with 1729 rape victims in 2009, U.P. had 0.9 rape victims per lakh population.

Taking into account the condition in Assam, which is a much smaller state compared to U.P, it has 1631 rape victims, which means a rate of 5.3 rape victims per lakh population, which is almost six times greater than that of U.P.

Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, U.P. and Bihar were the five best states or UTs in 2009, among those with a population of 100 lakh or more in the same order, all of them having less than one rape victim per lakh population.

On the other hand, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and West Bengal are the five worst, in the descending order of the rates. West Bengal stands the best among this which had a rate of 2.6 rape victims per lakh population which is about three times as bad as in case of U.P.

It must also be noted that, not one of the five best States or UTs had a congress Govt. in 2009, although Tamil Nadu had one which was run by an ally. Therefore it is an important fact that, the political colour of the Govt. has little co-relation with the rape statistics.

Again, in the States of U.P or Bihar, the Social factors played a vital role in the under reporting of crimes against the women compared to that of Delhi.  After all, there is no reason to believe that there is any less of a stigma attached to the rape victims in any of these states than in U.P. or Bihar.

Report by Sharika