Bhubaneswar: In a shocking revelation, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has said in its 2018 annual crime report that Odisha tops the list of states where innocent children are engaged for pornography and circulation of other sexual materials.
As many as 333 cases under the Sections 14 and 15 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act have been registered in the state during 2018. The Sections deal with incidents where the accused used children for pornographic purposes or store child pornography materials. According to the NCRB report, for every one lakh children in the state the crime rate under Sections 14 and 15 of POCSO Act is 1.5 – making it the top state in this category of crime. The NCRB report further states that the number of incidents related to crime against children in Odisha increased significantly during the period – from 2,017 cases in 2017 to 5,217 cases in 2018.
Odisha also witnessed around 64 per cent increase in the registration of cases related to crime against children.
The state recorded 1,427 incidents of child rape cases under Sections 4 and 6 of the POCSO Act and Section 376 of IPC and ranked among the top five states related to such incidents in 2018.
Odisha also witnessed the registration of 3,167 cases under various Sections (363 to 369) of the IPC which pertains to kidnapping of children. Altogether 3,176 children were abducted in the state in 2018. As many as 2,787 missing children whom the Odisha Police failed to trace were deemed as kidnapped. With crime rate of 19.8, Odisha was ranked second in the country vis-à-vis kidnapping cases reported in 2018. As per the NCRB report, the state witnessed registration of 1,887 cases under the POCSO Act involving 1,895 child victims in 2018.
