The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) showcased the rate of crime against children in India in 2016. The records show that while in 2015, 10,854 cases of rape under Section 376 of the IPC and under Sections 4 and 6 of POCSO Act were registered pan-India, 2016 saw 19,765 of such cases being registered. The most number of minor rape cases were reported in Madhya Pradesh (2,467), Maharashtra (2,292), Uttar Pradesh (2,115), Odisha (1,258) and Tamil Nadu (1,169) in 2016.

2018, however, has recorded a number of brutal cases of children being raped and murdered, with the statistics depicting a grimmer picture.

The year began with the news of the Kathua Rape Case. The eight-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped by eight different men in a temple in Kathua, belonged to the Muslim Bakerwals community. She was reportedly held for days in the temple and raped, in what appears to have been an effort to drive out the remaining members of the community from the region.

This was followed by the Jind & Panipat Rape Case. Earlier in January, the body of a 15-year-old girl from Jind, Haryana, who had been missing for three days, was found in the village of Jhansa. Medical reports showed that she had been brutally gang-raped, and her private parts had been mutilated. As for the Panipat case, an 11-year-old girl was raped and murdered by two of her neighbours, who reportedly committed necrophilia after they had murdered her.

In Tamil Nadu, an 11-year-old girl with a hearing disorder was gang-raped by at least 22 men in Chennai for over 7 months. Police arrested 18 men including the security men, lift operator and water suppliers of the society.