New Delhi:
Reports of rape in Delhi have more than doubled between January and March this year as compared with the same period last year, according to the Delhi Police.
Police say their records show that the number of molestation cases reported has increased more than six-fold, and that the rise in numbers is due to increased instances of complaints being registered.
There were 115 cases of molestation and 143 cases of rape reported for the period between January and March last year; this year those figures are 794 and 359 respectively.
Other crimes such as kidnapping and burglary have also spiked in the capital. Police say they have registered 1040 cases of kidnapping so far this year and 453 cases of burglary.
According to National Crime Records Bureau data, the number of rape cases reported in Delhi in 2012 - 706 - was the highest in the last 10 years.
Delhi's notoriety as an unsafe city for women was brutally underscored when a 23-year-old medical student was brutally assaulted and gang-raped on December 16 last year.
The government and police have been under immense pressure since then to step up safety measures for women in Delhi.
The Delhi government has announced a slew of measures to that end since December.
It said that it would double the number of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses that ply along the capital's routes at night and deploy home guards on buses at night.
The government has also set up a special 24X7 helpline service for women in the capital.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police has said it will press 350 new patrol vans to beef up security. Twelve of them, equipped with GPS and long-range weapons, rolled out in January this year.