Things you should know about India's first National Sex Offenders Registry

The database, based on details compiled from prisons across India, will include information on more than 4.5 lakh cases, including profiles of first-time and repeat offenders. 

The government of India today released the National Sex Offenders Registry to curb crime against women and children. India is the ninth country in the world to have such database.

India, the second most populous country in the world, after China, reports an extremely large number of child and sexual abuse cases in the world. Earlier this year, India was ranked the most dangerous country out of the world’s 10 worst countries for women, behind Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, according to a poll conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. In 2011, the same poll had placed India at fourth place.

The decision to create a national database for sex offenders was taken in April. It followed nationwide outrage over increasing cases of sexual assault on minors, including the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in J&K’s Kathua.

Following the decision in the same month, the government also approved an ordinance allowing courts to pronounce the death penalty for those convicted of raping children below 12 years.

The new database will let law enforcement agencies be more vigilant. But here are few things everyone must know about India's first National Sex Offenders Registry.

• The database will contain the names, residential address, fingerprints, DNA sample, and PAN/Aadhaar numbers of convicted offenders and accused.
• The database will contain details on more than 4.5 lakh cases, including profiles of first-time and repeat offenders
• The database will ease the process of investigation, monitoring, and tracking of sex offenders.
• The data will be stored for 15 years for those classified as low danger, 25 years for those causing moderate danger, and life time for those convicted of violent crime, habitual offenders, convicts in a gangrape and custodial rapes, as per the officials.
• It will also include information on arrested and charge-sheeted offenders. This particular data will be limited access, provided to officers with necessary clearance.
• The data will be maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau and will only be accessible to law enforcement agencies, not to the public.
• India is the ninth country after the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Trinidad & Tobago to have such a database.

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