Bhubaneswar: Women and child development minister Prafulla Samal admitted in the state Assembly on Sunday that altogether 1200 cases of crimes against women were pending before the State Commission for Women in the state.

"This year, 1430 cases related to domestic violence, dowry torture, divorce and rape had been lodged with the commission. Of them, 230 cases have been disposed, while the remaining 1200 cases are pending," said Samal adding that the commission had registered 14 cases on its own as well.

Six-hundred-seventy-five cases of domestic violence had been filed before the commission by end of November this year. Of them, 132 cases have been disposed, while 543 cases are still pending. Similarly, 707 dowry torture cases had been lodged with the commission, of which, 93 have been disposed, while 614 cases are pending. Only four divorce cases had been filed and all of them are pending. Of the 44 cases related to rape registered with the commission, only five cases have been disposed while 39 cases are still pending. The commission was set up in early nineties in the state to deal with cases related to atrocities on women.

Odisha was placed fifth among 36 states and union territories in the country in terms of number of rape cases registered in 2015. The number of rape cases increased to 2251 in 2015 as against 1978 in 2014.

The National Crime Records Bureau report for 2015 had revealed that reported cases included complaints by 1052 minors across the state in 2015.

However, the state government claimed that the number of rape cases registered in 2016 had declined over the previous year. According to the recent information provided by the home department, the number of rape cases registered has come down to 2129 in 2016 from 2327 in 2015.

The number of arrested accused persons was 2253 in 2016 as against 2593 in 2015. Altogether, 154 persons remained at large in 2016 as against 121 in 2015.

Though the number of rape cases has declined, incidents of recording obscene videos of young girls, especially minors, have become a disturbing trend recently.

In reply to a query in the state Assembly, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said that a standard operating procedure was being formulated to check such crimes and all the SPs had been directed to act accordingly. Besides, police officers are being trained on the investigation of cyber crimes. At present, the state has only one cyber police station at the police headquarters in Cuttack.