The capital recorded a decline in registration of IPC cases with 53,244 last year as against 55,125 in 2006, which was a decrease of 1,881 cases, he said releasing the crime data for 2007.

However, he claimed that the detection rate of crime has increased from 87.9 per cent to 89.4 per cent.

The capital witnessed a decline of rape cases from 609 in 2006 to 581 last year, Dadwal said noting that working out ratio has increased by 1.26 per cent to 95.18 per cent.

Majority of the rape accused -- 98.28 per cent -- were known to the victims, he said.

Of the persons arrested in rape cases, 340 were neighbours, 94 were friends and 62 were relatives. Only in ten cases, the accused were strangers.

No rape cases were reported from 19 police stations out of the total 132 while 25 police stations accounted for 288 such incidents amounting to about 50 per cent.

Police also solved all the 24 cases of kidnapping for ransom last year. There were 32 cases in 2006 and the solving rate was 75 per cent.

However, Dadwal said there was a marginal increase -- 0.36 per cent -- in heinous offences with 2,217 such cases in 2007 as against 2209 in 2006.