Chandigarh: Crime against the elderly in the city more than doubled in a single year — and the city now has a crime rate against seniors nearly 7 times the national average, topping even Delhi. The numbers are all from the latest official NCRB data.

Arvind Chhabra

Chandigarh, May 8

Chandigarh has always carried a certain pride — the planned city, the clean city, the city Le Corbusier built from scratch. Its low population density, well-lit sectors, and visible police presence gave it a reputation as one of the safest urban centres in northern India. The National Crime Records Bureau’s Crime in India 2024 report, released this week, has dealt a serious blow to that image.

According to the NCRB data on Chandigarh crime, the UT recorded a senior citizen crime rate of 211.7 per lakh population in 2024 — the highest of any state or Union Territory in the entire country. This places Chandigarh above Delhi (110.4), above Maharashtra (44.3), and nearly seven times the national average of 31.4 per lakh.

Most alarmingly: this crisis appears to have arrived fast. In 2023, Chandigarh registered 67 cases of crime against senior citizens. In 2024, that number was 142 — a 111.9% increase in a single year.

Chandigarh Crime: How it Compares to the Rest of India

Among all 28 states and 8 Union Territories, Chandigarh stands alone at the top of this grim table:

Source: NCRB Crime in India 2024

The comparison of Chandigarh crime with Delhi is particularly stark. Delhi has long been associated with high crime against the elderly, yet its rate of 110.4 per lakh is less than half of Chandigarh’s 211.7. Chandigarh’s own senior citizen population is just 70,000 people — making each case registered a larger share of a very exposed community.

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Fraud and Theft Are Devouring Chandigarh’s Elderly

Chandigarh crime breakdown of the 142 cases tells its own story. This is not primarily a story of physical violence — though that exists too. It is overwhelmingly a story of financial predation and theft targeting people who are old, often alone, and frequently trusting.

Source: NCRB Crime in India 2024

Cheating, fraud and forgery together account for 62 of the 142 cases (43.7%) — the single largest category. Within this, 24 cases involve online fraud under the IT Act — digital scams targeting seniors who may be less equipped to identify them. The rate for this sub-category alone is 34.3 per lakh.

Theft follows at 33 cases (23.2%) with a rate of 47.1 per lakh. Snatching — handbags, phones, jewellery grabbed from the elderly on streets — contributed 14 cases at a rate of 20.0 per lakh. Two senior citizens were murdered in Chandigarh in 2024.

Source: NCRB Crime in India 2024

The Cyber Crime Connection: 404% Surge

The senior citizen fraud numbers do not exist in isolation. Chandigarh’s overall cybercrime figures tell a parallel story. The city recorded just 23 cybercrime cases in 2023. In 2024, that figure exploded to 116 cases — a 404% jump in a single year. This makes Chandigarh one of the fastest-growing cybercrime hotspots in India relative to its size.

Source: NCRB Crime in India 2024

Chandigarh’s cybercrime rate of 9.3 per lakh is now comparable to cities like Kerala (8.2 per lakh), despite being a fraction of their size. While the NCRB data does not explicitly cross-reference cyber crime and elderly victims in a single table, the simultaneity of the surge in both elderly fraud cases and overall cybercrime strongly suggests that digital financial fraud targeting senior citizens is the primary driver of both trends.

Cyber criminals commonly exploit elderly targets through fake customer care numbers, digital arrest scams, pension and insurance fraud calls, and UPI-linked schemes — methods that prey on digital unfamiliarity and financial anxiety.

Police Are Responding — But Is It Enough?

With that kind of Chandigarh crime rate, one number that offers partial reassurance is the chargesheeting rate. At 88.4%, Chandigarh Police is chargesheeting suspects in nearly 9 out of 10 elderly crime cases — well above the national average of 74.4% and significantly higher than Delhi’s 51.6%.

Source: NCRB Crime in India 2024

A high chargesheeting rate means the police are arresting and building cases against accused persons. But chargesheeting is not the same as prevention — and the 112% surge in cases in a single year suggests that the speed of enforcement is not matching the growth of offending.

North Desk View: What Chandigarh Must Reckon With

The data forces an uncomfortable question: why is a compact, well-policed, relatively affluent city producing the country’s worst numbers on elderly crime? Several factors converge. Chandigarh has a large and growing retired population — government officers, armed forces veterans, professionals — many of whom live alone or in nuclear households after their children have moved to other cities and countries. They hold savings, property, and pensions. They are, in the eyes of criminals, targets of value.

The cyber fraud explosion — centred on financial scams — suggests that Chandigarh’s elderly are being specifically profiled by organised criminal networks. The city’s reputation for prosperity and its concentration of wealthy retirees may, paradoxically, be making it a preferred hunting ground.

The NCRB 2024 data does not offer explanations — only counts. But what it counts in Chandigarh in 2024 is a city that has failed to protect its most vulnerable residents, despite every structural advantage. That failure deserves urgent attention from Chandigarh Administration, the UT Police, and the community itself.

A city that prides itself on planning, order and livability has become the most dangerous place in India to grow old. The numbers say so. The question is whether anyone in power is listening.

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