Sixty fatal accidents, 10 culpable homicides, four murders, two rapes and one dowry death, all in one hour.

This was what happened on the crime front in India in 2002.

Apart from these, a recent report of the National Crime Records Bureau said, 59 housewives committed suicide every day, though the average male-female ratio of suicide victims was 61:39.

In its latest report, "Crime in India", the bureau says a total of 5,531,172 cognisable offences were registered, of which 1,780,330 were crime covered by the Indian Penal Code.

The rest were crime reported under Special and Local Laws, which cover 22 heads like gambling, illegal arms possession and prostitution.

Pondicherry reported the highest crime rate for all IPC crime, 447.7, which is 2.6 times the national crime rate of 169.5. It also reported 54 suicides per 100,000 people. The national average was 10.6.

Kerala [Images] reported the highest crime rate followed by Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

As for crimes against women, Chhattisgarh reported 38.4 per cent of a total of 146,678 cases registered nationwide.

Among the 35-mega cities, Delhi accounted for 24 per cent (320 out of 1,312) rape cases and 34 per cent (759 of the 2,251) of kidnappings and abduction of women.

Delhi also accounted for 61 per cent deaths due to starvation and thirst.

Nearly one fourth of a total of 10,469 crimes committed against children were reported from Madhya Pradesh.

The report also said 19 per cent of all accidental deaths in the country were reported from Maharashtra and 26 per cent of road accident victims were occupants of either trucks or lorries.

Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, accounted for 19 per cent of the total of 35,290 murder cases registered for the year.

The incidence of crime in Uttar Pradesh in 2002 was higher than that of Bihar in the same year, the report said.

As many as 6,825 cases of murder were reported from UP in 2002, while Bihar recorded 3,712 murders.

Likewise, 1,893 women were killed for dowry in UP, as against 927 in Bihar and 449 in Andhra.

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