A year of soaring crime rate

A year of soaring crime rate

Deccan Herald

Robbers, chainsnatchers, burglars and thieves of Bangalore will cherish year 2004 for long. They wish year 2005 to be like the previous year. With sparse presence of police on the roads, they struck at will with more vigour, both during day and night.

Women became soft targets for chainsnatchers and chainsnatching incidents were reported from all over the city. The usual modus operandi was that robbers identified isolated residential localities and targeted lonely women. They struck mostly during the morning and evening and escaped on their motorcycles after snatching gold chains.

In the first eleven months, burglars broke into 1,734 houses and looted valuables worth crores of rupees, making a mockery of the night police patrol. What is worse is that miscreants looted as many as 340 houses in broad daylight too. Besides, there was a steep increase in robberies and theft of vehicles, which were lifted infront of houses and parking lots.

The rise in crimes was despite the police manipulating the cases. There were instances of the men in khaki changing ‘robbery’ cases as ‘thefts’ as the increase of the former reflects poorly on them. To cite an instance, recently, a miscreant snatched away the mobile phone of a journalist while walking on Dickenson Road. Though the incident is categorised as robbery, a police sub-inspector of a police station registered the complaint as theft. The reason given was that if it was robbery, then they have to bring the incident to the notice of their higher-ups.
Citizens lost sense of security and cried foul against the escalating crimes, but City Police Commissioner S Mariswamy consistently maintained - “crimes have not gone up and the city is very much safe.” Instead, on several occasions, he accused the media of sensationalising crimes and creating panic among citizens.
But the statistics speak volumes about the failure of the city police force in preventing crimes during the year. In the first 11 months, incidents of murders for gain, robberies, chainsnatching incidents, burglaries, both during day and night, vehicle thefts and cattle thefts crossed the previous years’ mark.

The reasons for the rise in crimes included sparse presence of police on roads, lack of proper supervision by senior officials and failure to involve citizens in policing (the Hello Neighbourhood programme launched by Mr H T Sangliana was also disbanded).