Thanks to the drive by the National Crime Records Bureau to collect district-wise data on crime, India has some idea of the pattern of crime at the level of districts, though the data is available only for cognizable offences — an offence in which a police officer has the authority to make an arrest without a warrant and to start an investigation with or without the permission of a court.

In 2018, Kanpur Dehat — where gangster Vikas Dubey (inset) , killed during a police “encounter” on Friday, a day after his arrest, ruled the roost — was an unremarkable …