According to the government's own data, eight cases of sexual crimes have been registered across the country every day for the last two years.
Nearly four days after the horrific rape and torture of a four-year-old girl in Delhi, no one has been arrested. The police have detained four men for questioning.
The child, who had lured to a jungle in Delhi's Kehsavpuram with chowmein and Rs 10, had been raped, bitten, hit with stones and left to die. Her assailants had even tried to throttle her, but ran away after they had heard someone approaching, her father had said. She had somehow managed to crawl back home, bleeding and in terrible pain.
Although the child is now out of danger, she has sustained extensive damages in her intestines and private parts, apart from bruises and bites all over her body. Doctors say she will need a series of surgeries over the next six months to completely recover.
One of the four men detained by the police is 26-year-old Rahul, whom the child named as her assailant after recovering consciousness in hospital. According to her, Rahul had had lured her with noodles and taken her to jungle. There, another man is suspected to have brutally raped her, said police sources.
Rahul is a local resident. So are the other three men who have been detained, the sources in Delhi police said.
Officers said the case, which currently mentions rape, can also be expanded to include attempt to murder after the child gave details of the assault.
The chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, who visited the child at the hospital, had described her injuries as "horrific". Comparing the assault to the December 2012 rape of a medical student in Delhi that had led to nationwide protests, she had added, "Every day we have a Nirbhaya in Delhi."
According to the government's own data, eight cases of sexual crimes have been registered across the country every day for the last two years. But while 6,816 cases have been registered by the police from Nov 2012 to March 2015, the conviction rate has been an abysmal 2.4 per cent.
The Women and Child Development Ministry has said that about 6,816 police cases have been registered under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act between November 2012 and March 2015.
Topping the chart is Rajasthan with 936 cases, Maharashtra with 926, UP 869 and Kerala with 596 cases, under the law.