Summary of this article
Crimes against senior citizens in India rose nearly 17 per cent in 2024, according to NCRB’s Crime in India 2024 report.
Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra recorded the highest case counts, while Chandigarh and Delhi led in crime rate per lakh population.
Theft, followed by forgery, cheating, fraud and murder, were the most common offences.
Crime against senior citizens has increased by 16.9 per cent in 2024 over the previous year, according to the latest report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), titled Crime in India in 2024, released on May 6, 2026. A total of 31,067 cases (crimes against senior citizens) were reported in 2024, compared to 27,886 in 2023 and 28,545 in 2022. The growing number raises concerns around senior citizens’ safety and security, especially when the elderly population is rising in the country.
The detailed report shows the state- and union territory (UT)-wise data, according to which, the highest number of crime against senior citizens were reported in Madhya Pradesh (5875), followed by Maharashtra (4918), and Karnataka (4247). In the UTs, Delhi tops the list with 1,267 cases, followed by Chandigarh (142) and Jammu and Kashmir (107).
The report calculates the crime rate per one lakh of population. According to the report, Madhya Pradesh ranked at the top with the highest (102.8) crime rate against senior citizens in 2024. The other states with high crime rates include Chhattisgarh (92.8), Haryana (87.2), Telangana (84.4), and Karnataka (73.3).
In the UTs, Chandigarh registered 211.7 cases per lakh population in 2024 in crimes against senior citizens, followed by Delhi with 110.4 cases of crimes against senior citizens per lakh population.
Of the different categories of crimes against senior citizens, such as murder, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempt to commit murder, assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty, rape, sexual harassment, robbery, theft, snatching, extortion, forgery, cheating, fraud, and others, highest number of cases have been registered under theft (4,786), forgery, cheating and fraud (4,451), and murder (1,229).
