Mapping crimes against women: spatio-temporal analysis of braid chopping incidents in Kashmir Valley, India

Crime and fear of crime are significant aspects of daily life and the occurrence of crime shows strong spatio-temporal variations. The valley of Kashmir is facing political instability, while violation of human rights has become a daily routine. However, women face more atrocities than men. Braid chopping is a new phenomenon of violence against women. The incidents of braid chopping started suddenly on 5 September 2017 and ended on 22 October 2017. In the present study, we have analysed spatio-temporal pattern of braid chopping incidents in order to understand whether the reported cases are randomly distributed across the valley or if there are geographical clusters of these incidents. Kernel density was worked out to make hotspots of the crime apparent on the map. We have identified two major hotspots of braid chopping, one in south Kashmir i.e. district Kulgam and the other in south western parts of Srinagar. This is a pioneering research attempt to represent a case study of braid chopping and also the first research article to carry out such type of work in GIS environment. The GIS maps generated in this study can helps authorities to carry out investigation in the identified areas instead of spreading resource to the entire valley.