NEW DELHI: You are most likely to be waylaid, robbed or become a victim of theft if you are driving on a national highway through UP or Bihar. However, if you are crossing Goa, terror-infested Jammu & Kashmir or the insurgency-affected northeast, you are most likely to reach your destination safe and sound.

Government data on highway crimes show it is most dangerous to drive through UP and Bihar with both states registering highest number of highway robberies in the past three years. The two states together account for almost 50 per cent of all highway robberies in the country.

At third, fourth and fifth are Odisha, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh accounting for around 18 per cent of all robberies on the highway.

In the category of theft on highways, however, UP tops the chart by a huge margin. Of the over 82,000 cases of theft across the country on highways in the past three years, UP accounted for over 64,000 (almost 80 per cent). Here too, Bihar is placed second but with just over 1,500 cases.

Experts cite a slew of factors leading to crimes on highways. Since both UP and Bihar already have very high incidence of crime, it is natural it would be reflected on the highways. Secondly, for most states, maintaining day-to-day law and order within towns and cities takes priority over securing highways which suffer from lack of enough personnel and vehicles for highway patrol.

Not far from Delhi, parts of highways in western UP are regularly shut off by UP police and traffic diverted through sleeping towns as they are unable to ensure safety along deserted stretches.

Goa has turned out to be the best state in terms of threat of highway robberies recording merely nine robberies in three years. The figure for thefts too is barely in double digits.
TOI | Sep 1, 2014

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