Maharashtra Tops in Child Murders

Bangalore: Maharashtra ranks first in the number of children (up to 10 years) found murdered as per the latest figures released from the national crime records bureau. It was noted that Maharashtra tops this list with 141 victims, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 96 and Tamil Nadu in the third position with 90 child victims.

Surprisingly, Bihar and Delhi were noted to be comparatively safe for children as the former had just 28 victims while Delhi had 23 child victims in 2011. Senior police officers claim that the conditions under which these children were murdered were similar across states. Many cases involved kidnapping for ransom that went wrong. Extra marital affairs also accounted for murders as one party could see the child as a hindrance. In few cases, mentally ill people killed the child.

A total of 33, 098 cases of crimes against children were reported in the country during 2011 as compared to 26,694 cases during 2010, indicating an increase of 24 percent.

Coimbatore deputy commissioner of police Hema Karunagaran said "To take the life of a child even in a fit of rage requires an extremely numb and deranged mindset," as reported by TOI.

As per the 2011 statistics it was seen that 136 murder cases in Tamil Nadu had victims below 18 years of age. While in 2010 Tamil Nadu had registered 810 crime cases committed against children and accounted for 3 percent of the total national average.