Kolkata is India’s safest city to live in

With the lowest rate of cognisable offences recorded, Kolkata has gained the top spot in the list of safest Indian cities for two years in a row now.

In the recently released 2018 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report's list of the country's safest cities, which measures cognisable offences recorded per lakh people, Kolkata comes on top with a score of 152.2, reports The Times of India.

The city is followed by Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai.

Kolkata's IPC (crimes covered under the Indian Penal Code) crime rate of 2018 has fallen to 139.5 from 141.2 in 2017 and 159.6 in 2016. But the city has slipped to the second spot in terms of IPC cases.

Bengal's performance has also raised a few uneasy questions. The state was the fourth-most violent crime-prone after Assam, Tripura and Haryana. Its crime rate stood at 46.1 – higher than Jammu and Kashmir (25.6) and even Uttar Pradesh (29.2).

However, Bengal has put up an improved performance when it came to controlling crime against women.

Bengal dropped to the 10th position in rapes and, for the first time, and moved out of the top three as far as dowry-related deaths were concerned.

Kolkata's crime rate has been on a downward slide for the past five years. The total number of cases has declined from 26,161 in 2014 to 19,682 in 2018, a 25 percent fall.

The city fared well in containing violent crime, registering only 55 cases of murder and 143 attempts to murder in 2018.

In comparison, Delhi registered 416 cases of murder and 473 murder attempts, while Mumbai registered 164 murders and 280 attempts. Kolkata also saw 14 rapes in 2018, compared with 15 in 2017.

The black mark in Kolkata's report card was that it again remained in the list of the only three cities to record two acid attacks, apart from Delhi and Chennai.

Kolkata Police Commissioner Anuj Sharma said: "Focused attention of the state government towards creating infrastructure and additional manpower, creation of new police stations, upgrade of vigilance, both human and technological, among other things have helped greatly in the prevention and detection of crime."

"Various community-relevant programmes have brought the public nearer to the police in the city by creating confidence and by creating awareness. This has led to better policing in the city."

Citing specific instances, Anuj said several ground-level changes, in both law and order maintenance and patrolling, along with stress on scientific crime detection, helped them.

The total number of crimes committed against women dropped from 32,513 to 30,394. The rate of crime against women stood at 64.4, with at the least seven states faring much worse – Haryana, Rajasthan, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Assam.

The state of Bengal also recorded fewer rapes (1,069) than in 2017.