Home ministry compiles data of 10L sexual offenders to fight crime

The Union home ministry has gathered the details of more than 10.69 lakh sexual offenders in the country and their profiles are available with the law-enforcement agencies on a real-time basis to probe new offences.

According to the annual report of the ministry for 2020-21, the National Database on Sexual Offenders has the data of more than 10.69 lakh sexual offenders in the country, which allows investigating officers to track habitual sex offenders, besides initiating preventive measures against sexual offences.

The details of the sexual offenders convicted under the charges of rape, gang rape, harassing women and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act are available on the database.

It also contains details such as names, addresses, photos, IDs and fingerprint details of the offenders and the registry can be accessed by the law-enforcement agencies to probe sex crimes across the country, the report says.

"The NDSO is available 24x7 to all law enforcement agencies and enables antecedent verification and speedy detection in case of sexual offences," it says.

Leveraging the Inter Operable Criminal Justice System platform, the NDSO, which aims at specifically impacting and reducing crime and violence against women through identification of known and habitual sexual offenders, was launched in September 2018.

Officials said India is one of the few countries that maintain a sex offenders' list.

The US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago are some of the countries where such a database is available.

The United States is the only country where the sex offenders' database is available to the public.

For cases of sexual assault, in which the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 has mandated that the investigation should be concluded within two months from the date of the first report, the home ministry has developed the Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences portal for the states and Union territories to track the progress in detection and resolution of sexual offences based on the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems data.

It is a cloud-based analytics portal available for the law-enforcement agencies with drill-down features starting from the national level up to the FIR level.

It can be used to generate reports and dashboards on ageing of cases and has the ability to flag pendency at the district and police station levels to help expedite resolution.

The annual report said the Bureau of Police Reforms and Development has distributed 14,950 Sexual Assault Evidence Collection kits to the states and Union territories.

These SAEC kits will facilitate the efficient collection, handling and storage of forensic evidence in cases of sexual assault.