NAGPUR: The city saw a worrying 36.6% rise in number of crimes registered in the five years from 2011 to 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau ( NCRB ).While the total number of cases jumped from 8,063 to 11,018, there was a massive increase in cases of violence against women. Offences of outraging modesty of women shot up from 68 in 2011 to 392 in 2015, an increase of 476.5%. And the number of rape cases went up from 45 to 166 in the same period, a rise of 268%, NCRB reports revealed.Vehicle theft accounted for the highest number of cases registered in 2015 – 3,044 – with the total number of vehicles stolen in five years coming to 13,396, again the maximum for a single category of offences.Some serious offences — burglary, attempt to murder, cruelty by husband, kidnapping, causing death by negligence and robbery — witnessed an increase, while those like murder, riots, causing grievous hurt and culpable homicide not amounting to murder showed a dip.Just last month, the chief minister’s office (CMO) had stated that the state had seen a decrease in the number of serious offences reported from November 2014 to June 2016.However, the numbers for Nagpur city, especially those related to assaults on women, are a matter of concern for the city police. Some officials said that the numbers look high because of prompt registration of offences.The city registered 440.7 crimes per lakh population—total population of the city during the year was 27 lakh—in 2015. It is 6.4% rise as compared to that in 2014, or 387.1 cases per lakh population.A total of 11,018 offences were registered in 2015 in Nagpur, up from 10,359 in 2014. While this is one-fourth of the total cases (42,940) registered in Mumbai during the period, Mumbai city stood fourth among other commissionerates in the state, with crime ratio calculated per lakh population is 233.2 (total 1.84 crore population in 2015).In 2015, Nagpur witnessed a rise in cases like theft, rash driving, burglary, outraging modesty of a woman, kidnapping, rape, criminal breach of trust, forgery, extortion , arson and human trafficking. However, some prompt actions taken by the former and current police commissioners resulted in bringing down some of the serious offences. Violent crimes like robbery, murder, riots and dacoity dipped. Nagpur police found out that a majority of the cases was related to property and many serious offences occurred over petty issues like a fight over a mobile phone.However, commissioner of police K Venkatesh had another explanation for the high number of crimes registered. “In Maharashtra , complaints are registered promptly, which is not the case in other states. So the number of complaints in our state will be more,” he said.“We have tied up with NGOs to come out with a solution to tackle crimes against women and children. This is our priority. Meanwhile, several preventive actions have been taken against known criminals so that they will not create further problems. In many cases, criminals are sent to jail so that gang wars and other serious offences are curbed,” said Venkatesh.Former Nagpur Commissioner of Police SP Yadav said population of Nagpur was over 24 lakh in 2006. So there is misrepresentation of actual population of Nagpur city and Mumbai city and this is the main reason for distorted facts. “Present population of Nagpur city is above 25 lakh, excluding Hingna and Kamptee. The population figure of Mumbai - 1.84 crore - is inflated one. Hence this discrepancy. Nagpur registered 80 murder cases in 2015 which is the lowest in last twenty years. Hence, the data also needs to be relooked,” said Yadav.Former state director general of police Pravin Dixit recommended a few measures to reduce rate of crime. These included starting student-police cadet scheme for Class 8 and 9 students; strengthening Police Mitra scheme to encourage people’s participation; improving conviction rate and expeditiously disposing of pending cases.IPS officer-turned-lawyer YP Singh said that prior to 1960, Nagpur was capital of Old Madhya Pradesh where the standards of registration of crime were different. Due to such legacy of liberal registration, even though the magnitude of serious crimes was not very different with respect to other districts of Maharashtra, yet, because of the registration of large number of Part-VI offences (non-serious cases), the rate of crime registration has been high in Nagpur. “As far as the rise in crime is concerned, there has been a rapid rise in urbanization in Nagpur. It is a general trend that increased urbanization leads to increased crimes,” said Singh.