The Braj region was once famous as the land of Lord Krishna, but these days it is gaining the notoriety of being one of the most unsafe regions for the women in Uttar Pradesh, with over 129 cases of rape being reported in this region in the past 90 days.

According to the statistics available at the police headquarters in Agra, 27 rape cases have been reported in Aligarh, 25 in Agra, 26 in Mathura, 19 in Firozabad, 11 in Mainpuri, 9 in Etah, 6 in Kasganj and 6 rapes have been reported in Hathras in the past three months.

Aligarh, Agra, and Mathura are proving to be the most dangerous districts for women in this region, with an aggregate of 78 rapes taking place here between January and March this year.

These statistics do not report the rape cases that took place in the past 21 days of April in these districts, although two gruesome rape and murders were reported by the media in Etah district recently.

This spurt in rape cases in the past few months have the parents worried about the safety of their daughters, and the sales of pepper spray and small knives have been seeing an upward trend as more and more women and young girls arm themselves with these for personal safety.

While speaking to India Today, a senior police official claimed that in the past three months, 260 people had been accused in the 129 rape cases registered by the police. Out of which 22 were not prosecuted and given clean chit. While 140 of the 205 remaining accused have been sent to jail, 10 have surrendered in the court and 55 are absconding.

Senior psychiatrist Dr K C Gurnani termed this tendency of some people to sexually assault children as a mental disorder called pedophilia which is usually found in people who have some physical weakness which makes them feel inferior to the other men and are even afraid to communicate with women. Such people target children as an easy prey and since they are scared of being identified, they often murder the children.

Two such cases of rape with minors have been reported in Agra recently. In one case, the minor girl's father is the accused while in the other case a law student of an Agra college has been identified in CCTV footage as the rapist and killer of the child. Police said the law student Amit has been sent to jail.

SSP Agra Amit Pathak told India Today that such incidents are being taken very seriously by the police and all police stations have been issued instructions to give special attention to any form of harassment of women. The police are actively arresting culprits in such cases and action is also being taken under sections 82/83 of CrPC.

Inspector General of Police Agra Range Raja Srivastava told India Today that senior officials have been given specific instructions to reach the crime scene personally and ensure that the FIR is registered without any delay. All accused are to be arrested immediately and produced before the court so that the trust of the people on the police can be rebuilt.

Hindustani Biradari Vice-Chairman Vishal Sharma also spoke to India Today and said that the new ordinance issued by the central government today to amend POCSO, IPC, CrPC and other related acts concerning sexual assault on women or minors is a welcome step and will hopefully act as a deterrent in rape cases, although it will also increase the possibility of rape victims being murdered by the rapists to avoid being identified and prosecuted. He said that law alone will not be a deterrent, but if the police step up prosecution, proactively work on solving rape cases and bringing the culprits to book, this number of rape cases might come down.

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