Heinous crime, by the state’s own count.
Crime figures in India are quoted loudly and read carelessly: a count mistaken for a rate, one legal row mistaken for the whole crime, a conviction rate divided by the wrong number. These pages go back to the Bureau’s tables and show what they do and do not say.1
Every figure is a case the police registered and the National Crime Records Bureau published, with a link to the table it came from. Nothing is estimated unless it says so.
Pick a crime
The count most reports quote leaves out children
States and cities, who the offender was, what the survey finds that FIRs miss, and what courts did.
Open →Murder · s.302One in three began as a dispute
Rates by state and city, the motive the police recorded, who the victims were, and the trial backlog.
Open →Theft, burglary, robbery, dacoityDelhi registers 29.1% of India’s thefts
Four heads kept apart, by state and city, with how much stolen property came back.
Open →Every head, 2022 to 2024
Cases and rate per lakh people, from Table 1.2 of the 2024 volume. The rape row here is section 376 only. From this volume the Bureau prints the rape rate per lakh people in this table; earlier volumes printed it per lakh women, which is why it looks halved.2
| Name | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theft (s.379) | 6,21,945 | 44.3 | 6,89,580 | 6,52,731 | −9.8% |
| Burglary | 1,07,532 | 7.7 | 1,07,573 | 1,07,222 | 0.0% |
| Rape (s.376) | 29,536 | 2.1 | 29,670 | 31,516 | −0.5% |
| Murder (s.302) | 27,049 | 1.9 | 27,721 | 28,522 | −2.4% |
| Robbery | 23,145 | 1.6 | 26,599 | 28,356 | −13.0% |
| Dacoity | 2,393 | 0.2 | 3,792 | 2,666 | −36.9% |
Four ways crime figures mislead
Every figure is an FIR. A state whose police write down every complaint looks worse than one that turns people away. The Bureau prints this warning under every table.1
Uttar Pradesh has the most murders because it has the most people. Its murder rate is below the national one. Every page shows both.
Most child rape is filed under POCSO, not section 376. The usual rape figure leaves it out.
It is convictions divided by trials finished that year, most of them from earlier FIRs.
Every figure, to its table
Government publications only. Each note links the document; the table number is where the figure is printed.
- Crime in India 2024, Volume I — Limitations and methodology, Principal Offence Rule and population baseNational Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs · accessed 2026-09-27Calendar year. Registered cases, principal-offence rule.
- Crime in India 2024, Volume I — Table 1.2, IPC/BNS Crimes (Crime Head-wise), 2022–2024National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs · accessed 2026-09-27Calendar year. Registered cases, principal-offence rule.
- Crime in India 2024, Volume I — Table 3A.2, Crimes against Women (Crime Head-wise and State/UT-wise)National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs · accessed 2026-09-27Calendar year. Registered cases, principal-offence rule.