Capital police deserve special thanks for cracking the double murder case of Techi Meena Lishi and her unborn child within a very short time. This kind of prompt action is the need of the hour and a message must have reached now to the culprits or the would-be ones that there is nothing as such like ‘perfect crime’ in the much-researched subject of Criminology and the arm of the law is indeed long. While the police in the state have set an example for its counterparts in other parts of the country by displaying high degree of professionalism through arrest of the wrongdoers in almost no time, the response of the civil society of Arunachal Pradesh is a matter of great hope and pride. People from every walk of life have expressed deep condemnation of the brutal incident from their heart and it must be a matter of great relief to the administration that public anger has subsided, at least for the time being with arrest of the planners and executors of the offence, which took away the lives of the woman and her unborn child.

It will be a matter of extreme pain and concern to notice how crimes against women are rising in the country. Keeping aside the horrific incident which took the life of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, that subsequently rocked the entire country, it’s necessary to have a look at the statistics of the very recent period. The report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which came on the public domain just a month and a half back will tell where the country stands now in terms of women’s safety. An average of 87 rape cases were recorded daily in 2019 and overall there were 4,05,861 cases of crimes against women during the year which is a rise of over 7% from 2018. It needs to be noted that these are only documented cases and it is also not too difficult to gauge the magnitude of those which remain out of record books. From a common understanding of the prevailing situation, it can be concluded that bulk of these unrecorded and unreported cases can be categorised under the head of ‘domestic violence’. All related figures on crimes against women will paint a heart-wrenching picture and it’s an irony that despite making the laws more stricter, cases are on the rise.

There is no ‘silver-bullet of the issue and it’s a hard truth. A multi-pronged combat mechanism, involving an agile law enforcing mechanism and social consciousness can to a good extent mitigate the problem. Arunachal has scored full marks in the above, as seen in the case. All these must be kept alive.