Gandhinagar March 11: Figures released by the government reveal the extent of rapes of adolescent girls in Gujarat which are on the rise. As many as 6215 adolescent girls were raped from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2020.

These figures were released by the state government during the budget session in reply to the question by Petlad state legislator Niranjan Patel.

Also, there has been a steep rise in the number of gangrapes committed on adolescent girls during the same.

From the period of October 1 2015 to September 30 2016, there were 950 cases of rapes, 1,133 cases in 2016-17, 1,341 cases in 2017-18, 1,453 cases in 2018-19 and 1,338 cases were registered with the police between October 2019 and September 2020.

This means that there was an increase of more than 19% in rape cases on adolescent girls in 2016-17 over the previous year, a further increase of more than 18% rapes occurred in 2017-18 and further increase of more than 8% such crimes committed in 2018-19. However, that steep curve saw a slight decline by 8% the following year in 2019-20, where there was lockdown due to Covid 19 and heavy restrictions on movement.

But the more worrying picture is that of gangrapes in Gujarat. There were a total of 72 gangrapes registered on adolescent girls during the same period. There were five gangrapes committed across the state in 2015-16 which increased by 140% in 2016-17 with 12 gangrape incidents registered and also in 2018-19. But this further increased and almost doubled in 2018-19 with 23 incidents of gangrapes registered with the police. The figures however saw a slight decline in 2019-20 with 20 gangrapes recorded where there was lockdown and restricted movement from March-October 2020.

The maximum number of rapes were registered in the largest city in the state, Ahmedabad with 977 cases. The highest number of gangrapes was also registered in Ahmedabad, nine in total during the same period. The Diamond City, Surat was second with 753 rapes in five years. Surat also saw seven gangrapes in the same period.

Bhavnagar witnessed 432 rapes of adolescent girls from 2015 to 2020 and six incidents of gang rapes. Rajkot witnessed 311 incidents of teenage girls raped and four incidents of gang rapes.

The North Gujarat city of Mehsana registered 272 rapes, Rajkot rural 271, Vadodara city 270, Ahmedabad rural 214, Chhota Udaipur 179, Surat Rural 174, Morbi 171, Jamnagar 163 and Patan saw 153 rapes on adolescent girls.

Out of these 6,215, Gujarat Police still has to arrest 209 persons connected with the crimes.

In response as to what steps the government took to prevent such crimes from occurring, the state's home department stated that 39 women police stations were set up across the state. For the protection of women in the state, 181 'Abhayam' women helpline was also started. The department had also launched a Abhayam 181 mobile application on August 6, 2018.

Moreover, Women Security Committees were set up at the village, Tehsil and district levels across the state and every district has a One Stop Crisis Centre in all 33 districts which are functional.