NE NEWS SERVICE
GANDHINAGAR, MARCH 10
At least 3,796 cases of rape and 61 offences of gang-rape were registered in Gujarat in the last two years, the state government informed the legislative Assembly on Thursday.
As on December 2021, 203 persons shown as accused in these FIRs were yet to be arrested by police, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said in his written replies during Question Hour of the ongoing budget session.
Patel, who handles the Home portfolio, was responding to a set of questions raised by Congress MLAs about the cases of rape and gang-rape registered in the state.
As many as 729 cases, the highest in the state, were registered in Ahmedabad, followed by Surat (508), Vadodara (183), Chhotaudepur (175) and Kutch (166), he said.
Similarly, 16 cases of gang-rape were registered in Ahmedabad in the last two years, followed by seven in Rajkot, five in Surat, and four each in Vadodara and Amreli, it was stated.
Responding to a related question, Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi said 8,028 cases of crime against women were registered in Gujarat in 2020.
Taking a pot-shot at the opposition Congress, Sanghavi said as against these 8,000-odd cases of crime against women in Gujarat, 31,954 cases had emerged in Maharashtra and 34,535 in Rajasthan, both ruled by the party.
Responding to Sanghavi, senior Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar said Sanghavi should focus on Gujarat, where “on an average five rapes are taking place daily”.
When Sanghavi made some comments about a recent discussion in the Rajasthan Assembly about rape cases, Speaker Nimaben Acharya stopped the minister saying his remarks were “improper” and “not as per the rules of the Assembly”.
The Speaker later expunged those comments from the records of the Assembly.
