UP Police To Eve-teasers: We Will be Your ‘Raanjhanaa’

UP Police speaks up about stalking.

(Photo: Twitter/UP POLICE‏Verified account )

Guess who has a wicked sense of humour?

The Uttar Pradesh Police!

In a recent effort to chastise eve-teasers and stalkers, UP Police tweeted out this gem :

For those who don’t get the reference, in the movie Raanjhanaa, the male lead was shown has an overtly obsessive man who would stalk the female lead. The movie faced some criticism for romanticising something as serious as stalking.

While on screen it may seem romantic, but in real life stalking is a punishable offence. Something that UP Police wanted to make clear with this snarky tweet.

Make Stalking a Non-Bailable Offence

Do you know that stalking is a bailable offence under Indian criminal law? This allows stalkers to get bail without serious scrutiny, often putting victims at risk of facing acid attacks, rapes, and even murder.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB):

1. There has been a 33 percent rise in stalking cases. As many as 4,699 cases were reported in 2014 and 6,266 cases were reported in 2015
2. Around 26 percent of the cases ended in conviction in 2015
3. Around 35 percent of the cases ended in conviction in 2014
4. In 2015, 83 percent of the accused were given bail before the investigation ended
5. In 2014, 85 percent of the accused were given bail before the investigation ended
6. Around 60 percent of all accused were men aged between 18 and 30. Around 2 percent were juveniles between the ages of 16 and 18.

In terms of the number of cases reported each year, only 3% in 2014, 5% in 2015 and 5% in 2016 resulted in convictions. In terms of trials, the conviction rate was 35% in 2014, but dropped to 26% in 2015 and was 26.4% in 2016.

Importantly, the data indicates a lower than normal incidence of false cases. The NCRB’s statistics show that of the 9,800 stalking cases investigated by the police in the year, only 215 were found by them to be false. This comes out to only 2.1% of all cases investigated in the year – which is below the average percentage of false cases per crimes investigated across the country: 2.5%.

This is why The Quint has launched a petition along with Varnika Kundu and MP Shashi Tharoor to appeal that Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh make stalking a non-bailable offence.

Sign our petition here.