The government revealed that crimes against children have shot up by between 10% and 20% inKarnataka.
Cases under Pocso in 2018 stood at 2,063 which rose to 3,097 in 2022, Jnanendra said. In less than two months in 2023, we have already registered 207 Pocso cases. This is largely due to an increase in awareness among the public to report such incidents and punish culprits. He said there has been a slight increase in the number of missing children cases. While data revealed a marginal drop in the number of missing girl children, the number of missing boys has seen a significant increase. In 2021, some 1,644 girl children went missing but that number has fallen to 1,443 in 2022, Janendra said.
Similarly, the number of missing boys, which was 488 in 2021, shot up to 742 in 2022. In both years, Bengaluru topped the list with the highest number of missing boys and girls. Jnanendra lauded efforts of the Police in swiftly detecting such cases and tracing the missing children successfully. The success rate of tracing missing boys and girls is 94% and 96 % respectively, he said.