Delhi as India's rape capital: Why data doesn't give us the whole story

Even as reports of sexual assault in Delhi continue to shock, the latest being a teenager raped by three men including a CRPF constable, a deep-dive analysis of complaints of sexual assault in the capital has thrown up interesting data. A six-month investigation by The Hindu showed, most significantly, that the largest percentage of sexual assualt complaints pertains to consenting couples with the girl's parents lodging a complaint of rape against the boy. The data also showed that another large section of complaints involved men who were in physical relationships and then refused to marry. Of the remaining, the most common kind of assault case was of men in slums in Delhi luring minor girls from neighbours' or acquaintances homes.

The Hindu exhaustively analysed all 583 sexual assault trials in Delhi's district courts that were decided in 2013. Of these, 123 or about a fifth were actually wound up early.

In these cases, either complainants went missing or turned hostile, backtracking on their earlier statements. "While it is likely that some of this is on account of the pressure exerted on women to withdraw complaints - in two cases, the complainants referred to “community members” intervening in their depositions - in several others, the complainant said that she had filed a false case for money or as a result of a property dispute. Naturally, all of these resulted in acquittals," the report said.

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Of the remaining, 189 cases involved consenting couples. Not just that, this category also had more than its fair share of cases in which the girl deposed clearly in favour of the accused, reporting abuse, threats and assault at their parents' home. "A large number involved inter-caste and inter-religious couples," the report said.

The report throws light on teenage love stories, inter-caste love stories and elopements that wind up in Delhi's courts

"In case after case, as well as in interviews with The Hindu, the behaviour of the girls’ parents was shocking: they arrive at the hotel the couple has eloped to and drag them home, they beat and even injure the couple (in one case breaking the girl’s spine), they threaten her even with acid, they force her to submit to invasive medical tests and in many cases, even to an abortion," the report said.

The three-part series throws light on the complexities of the apparently burgeoning numbers of rape and sexual assault complaints in the capital. Only last month, new data showed that Delhi continued to hold the dubious position as the country's 'rape cpaital'.

Latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) showed in early July that the number of rape cases in the country rose by 35.2 percent to 33,707 in 2013 - and Delhi alone had reported 1,441 rapes in 2013, the city with the highest number of rapes in the country.

Another report has also shown that the most common age group for victims is below 18 years.

While it also delves into the trend of young girls falling prey to sexual assault by neighbours or acquaintances in slum areas, the Hindu series raises critical questions about misogyny and subjugation, not only among perpetrators in rape cases but also among complainants in a large percentage of Delhi's rape cases.

Read the series here.