On May 5, Times Now published an article titled “Top 10 Indian States With Highest Crime Rate Revealed!.” The article claimed that Uttar Pradesh has a crime rate of “7.4 per capita” (which would translate to a whopping 7,40,000 crimes per 1,00,00 population) according to “2024 NCRB’s comprehensive crime report”.
Following the report, Times of India and MyPunePulse also published the same on May 6. Coming late to the scene, Jagran also published this on May 22. All of these reports made the same claim in similar language, using a mostly common set of words.
The Claim:
The reports claim that Uttar Pradesh has a crime rate of 7.4 crimes per capita, means 7.4 crimes per head. This translates to 7,40,000 crimes per 100,000. The reports claim that this figure is from the 2024 NCRB report. Similar high figures are claimed for nine other states, indicating a drastic increase in crime.
All of those reports claimed that the top 10 states with the highest crime rate in India are as follows:
- Uttar Pradesh – 7.4 crimes per capita
- Arunachal Pradesh – 5.8 per capita
- Jharkhand – 5.3 per capita
- Meghalaya – 5.1 per capita
- Delhi (NCT) – 5.0 per capita
- Assam – 4.4 per capita
- Chhattisgarh – 4.0 per capita
- Haryana – 3.8 per capita
- Odisha – 3.8 per capita
- Andhra Pradesh – 3.6 per capita
As per the reports, all these states have more crimes that the population, as they have over 1 per capita crimes. The same claim was also reported by websites which claim to house UPSC Preparation materials like PW IAS, Adda 24 7 and Study IQ.
Those articles highlighted certain causative factors behind high crime rates in these states. “Theft, violent crimes, and communal disturbances” in Uttar Pradesh are the key factors for the high crime rates. In Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, the extreme inaccessibility of remote tribal areas precludes proper police verification, thereby causing underreported complaints and unresolved crimes.
In Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, the continuing Maoist (Naxalite) insurgency and illegal mining-related problems keep violence and lawlessness at bay. Street crimes and a considerable number of crimes against women keep Delhi’s crime rates high. In Assam, ethnic conflicts and border disputes account for more frequent violent incidents. Gender crimes and rural inequality have been on the rise in Haryana and Odisha, therefore accentuating social tensions. Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh has emerged as a new hub for cybercrime and financial fraud, which bolsters its crime records while posing new challenges for law enforcement agencies.
The Reality:
These claims are entirely baseless and not supported by any official NCRB report. The latest “Crime in India” report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is for the year 2022, not 2024. It was released on December 3, 2023, and no NCRB report for 2023 or 2024 has been published yet on the NCRB website. We rechecked the information regarding the 2022 report by calling NCRB officials, who confirmed that the 2022 Report is indeed the latest.
The data provided in the 2022 report is given below. It shows that total crimes under IPC along with State and Local Laws.
The cartographic representation of 2022 data is as follows.
What does the NCRB 2022 report actually say
The NCRB report for 2022, with detailed data of all states and UTs, shows precisely the opposite of what these reports say. According to Table 1A.3 of Crime in India 2022, the all-India crime rate stood at 422.2 per 100,000 population, whereas the purported crime rate in Uttar Pradesh, is shown as 322 per 1,00,000 population, not 7.4 per person as claimed by the reports.
The NCRB data clearly indicate that Delhi has the highest the crime rate, at 1512.8 per lakh population. Kerala has the highest crime rate among the full states, recording 1274.8 crimes per 100,000 people in 2022. This is in comparison with a crime rate in Uttar Pradesh of 322 per 100,000 population, or 0.00322 per capita, which is lower than several other states including Kerala, Haryana, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu etc.
A claim that Uttar Pradesh has a crime rate of 7,40,000 per 100,000, translating into more than 1.7 billion crimes in a state with an approximate population of 240 million, is mathematically untenable and is a direct staring-in-the-eyes contradiction of the verified government data.
The propagation of these fabricated figures by major media outlets raises concern as they seek to misinform the public, undermine official data, and be used in political rhetoric with a special emphasis on framing specific states or administrations negatively. This framing of Uttar Pradesh raises many more eyebrows, as articles like this have a greater tendency to be misused. Such incorrect reporting erodes the credibility of journalism, especially when multiple outlets disseminate the same falsehood without verifying the report’s existence or cross-checking the data against publicly available NCRB records. Many vultures are always ready to take on Yogi Adityanath’s model, which is ensuring low crime in UP, taking care of mafia and bahubalis by putting them behind bars.
In the first place, there is no “2024 NCRB comprehensive crime report” in the public domain, while the last available data from the NCRB is for 2022. This data indicates that Uttar Pradesh is not a contender for being the state with the highest crime rates and does not even make the top ten. By resorting to citing fake reports and providing exaggerated figures, various articles by Times Now, The Times of India, Jagran, and Pune Pulse have distorted readers’ perceptions of the crime situation in India.
Readers are advised to verify crime-related claims on official sources, such as the NCRB website, and be cautious of reports that claim sensational figures without linking to or citing any verifiable source. While crime is indeed an issue in India, responsible reporting cannot be based on non-factual data fabricated from one’s own imagination, which distorts public perception. An honest, data-driven dialogue is the only way to allow a genuine understanding of crime trends to unfold, enabling public accountability, informed policy responses, and robust debate in a democratic setting.
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