Of Delhi rapes this year, 8 by those held earlier for crime

Of the rape cases reported in Delhi in 2012, at least eight involved accused who had not committed the offence for the first time. Delhi Police officials said they had no mechanism to keep a track of repeat sexual offenders.

A total of 661 cases of rape have been reported in the Capital so far this year. Data maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows as many as 45,603 people are in jails across the country on rape charges, of whom less than half (22,100) have been convicted.

An expert pointed out that most of the accused involved in sexual offences whom he had interacted with had a tendency to repeat the offence. "The tendency of sexual offenders to repeat such crimes is very high. In India, we do not have any inclusive scientific study on this subject to prove these claims. The small number of cases of repeat offenders cited by the police should be just taken as a data compiled for administrative reasons," said Dr Nimesh Desai, Director, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS).

In the US, the Justice Department puts out the name, photographs and details of people arrested for sexual offences in the public domain the moment they are out on bail so that people know about them.

However, Dharmendra Kumar, Special CP (Law and Order), admitted that India has no system where names and details of sexual offenders are sent out to the local police station level and tracked. "Till now we do not have such a system but we do have a record of people who are arrested repeatedly for certain crimes," he said.

While admitting that there was no way to track these men, former Delhi police commissioner B K Gupta said the number of such offenders was very low. "The law is very strict for people who have been arrested for the second time for an offence like rape. The number of multiple offenders in rape cases is rare," he said.

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