Sonowal cites NCRB data, trashes Gogoi's claim

CRIME AGAINST WOMEN

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, Dec 30: State BJP president Sarbanda Sonowal today refuted claims by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi that crimes against women has been lower in Assam than in most BJP-ruled States.

"The tiol Crime Records Bureau data for the year 2014 states that the rate of cognizable crimes against women in Assam is 123.4 (per lakh) - the highest in India. By ignoring this single most important data to judge Assam's performance on such an important parameter, Gogoi willfully withheld vital information from the people of the State," Sonowal said.

Stating that each instance of crime against women is a blot on the social fabric of the State, Sonowal said "it is deplorable for the guardian of a State to claim, as a matter of interpretation, that the intensity of the 19,139 cases of atrocities registered against women in Assam is in any way less than what the data reveal for some other States".

"By selectively quoting information from the NCRB data and wrongly interpreting that women in Assam are safer than anywhere else in the country, Gogoi has disrespected the pain and ordeal of the common woman in Assam. The Chief Minister has not just breached the trust which millions of Assamese people vested in the constitutiol office he holds, but he has also made a travesty of intellectual practice," Sonowal added.

A day after Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani attacked the Congress government in the State over atrocities against women, Gogoi had yesterday said that while in 2014, there were 19,139 cases of atrocities against women registered in Assam, BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh registered far greater number of such incidents.