GUWAHATI, May 3 - In its fight to curb crime against women, the Assam Police is facing a problem of a unique nature! Majority of cases of �abduction� of women have been turning out to be stories of �mutual elopement�, resulting in loss of energy and resources of the law enforcers.
This apart, the unique trend, according to the Assam Police, has also amounted to loss of reputation over the years as the cases in question which are initially registered as abductions, are seldom withdrawn even at a later stage.
Records say that although more than 9,000 cases of abduction of women were registered in the State since 2014, more than 80 per cent of them turned out to be cases of elopement and are registered as �abduction of woman to compel her for marriage� under Section 366 of the Indian Penal Code.
In fact, in 2014 as many as 3,883 cases of �abduction of women to compel them for marriage� were registered in the State, while the total number of cases related to abduction of women was 3,895. During the same period (2014), only six cases of abduction of women in order to murder and a select number of cases of abduction for ransom were reported.
In 2015, altogether 5,068 cases of abduction of women were registered across the State and here too majority of the cases turned out to be ones related to elopement.
In the current year till February, already 768 cases of abduction of women have been registered in the State.
�The number of genuine abduction cases is less than 20 per cent of what is reported in the entire State. But all these cases go into record books as cases of abduction, denting the image of the law-enforcers,� a senior Assam Police official said.
�The moment a girl/woman goes missing, family members in a fit of rage tend to lodge the complaint as an abduction case. The cases are accordingly registered and it is only after it is found that the victim in question has eloped with her love-interest on her own and there was no force employed,� the official added.
He further informed that the number of such cases has gone up considerably in the last one decade.
Substantiating his claim, he stated that compared to 1,456 cases of abduction of women registered in 2005, the figure last year (2015) had exceeded the 5,000-mark.
