Women and Senior Citizens Most Unsafe in Delhi

Highest number of crimes against women and senior citizens recorded in 2024

New Delhi – National capital Delhi has emerged as the worst performing major city when it comes to safety of women, children and the elderly.

According to the newly released statistics by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), as many as 13,396 cases of crime against women were recorded — the highest across 19 metro cities — in 2024. Delhi logged 2,75,402 criminal cases in 2023, and ranks at the top in crimes ranging from theft to murder and kidnapping. Apart from 1,267 cases of crimes against senior citizens, Delhi recorded 7,662 cases of crimes against children. Ironically, Delhi is also at the top in crime committed by children, with 2,306 registered cases. Delhi has also emerged as the ‘theft capital’ of India with 1,80,973 registered cases, at the rate of 497 cases per day.

Crimes like rape and dowry deaths remained a major concern, with 1,058 cases registered for rape. Abduction of women also remained a major concern, with 3,974 cases being registered, according to the NCRB 2024 data.

Crimes across India dipped six per cent: NCRB The number of cases registered has seen a slight dip of 6 per cent, the NCRB data says. Crime rate, which is a measure of cases registered per lakh population, also dipped from 448.3 in 2023 to 418.9 in 2024. More than 58.85 lakh cases were registered in 2024, as opposed to 62.41 lakh cases the previous year. It is worth noting, however, that number of murder cases in Delhi also decreased but not significantly. Against 506 murder cases registered in 2023, 504 cases were filed in 2024. Although, Delhi’s murder rate stood at 2.3 per lakh population in 2024, which was higher than the national average of 1.9.