Visakhapatnam: Andhra Pradesh is in serious conflict with regard to protection of children and their rights as crimes, including rape, abduction and burglaries by juveniles are on the rise. Despite the rising juvenile crimes, AP does not have a Borstal school to provide training to the juvenile criminals in various trades, which could help them settle in life. Last year (2015), there was 15 per cent increase in the number of minors committing crime in Andhra Pradesh. In 2014, 871 cases were registered against juveniles and in 2015, the number went up to 1,002 as per the NCRB-2015 data.
The report also revealed that AP has 47 minors booked for rape, 25 minors booked for murder, 49 minors booked for assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty and over 300 minors booked for robbery, theft and burglary in the state. DCP (Crimes) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy said a majority of the juveniles were school and college dropouts while a few others were students and they indulged in crimes for easy money to meet their expenses on drugs, alcohol and to satisfy their girlfriends by hosting parties.
In some cases, the minors from rich families were booked for committing cyber crimes such as defaming their friends and neighbours with morphed images on social networking sites. A senior advocate and President of Forum of Legal Professionals, Kuppili Muralidhar says counselling, guidance and motivation are required to change the mindset of the juveniles to not commit crimes again. He pointed out behaviour modification is key to children to transform their lives and future.
Sources said six more government juvenile observation homes will come up in the state. The government has already notified about 25 acres of land at Kondavelagada village in Nellimarla mandal of Vizianagaram district for construction of a new district jail and a Borstal School will also be set up along with it.
