Bangalore India’s robbery hub

Bangalore India’s robbery hub
A T Subramanya | TNN

Bangalore: Bangalore has revelled in being labelled the country’s IT Capital, Garden City and Pub Capital. But this is one epithet it most definitely doesn’t covet: ‘robbery’ capital of India. Unappetising though, Bangalore indeed tops the country in the total number of thefts. Sadly, it is also heads the charts in robberies at commercial establishments. And would you believe this, Karnataka leads the count in stolen cultural property and comes a close second in robberies at home and bank burglaries.
These have been revealed in ‘Crime in India 2007’, an annual report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the agency which maintains the national crime records. According to the report, amongst the 35 mega cities (population over 10 lakh), the highest incidence of robbery at various premises was reported from Bangalore (545) followed by Delhi (501) and Ahmedabad (417) with property loss of Rs 3.15 crore, Rs 4.28 crore and Rs 1.54 crore, respectively.
The city also had the highest incidence of robbery at commercial establishments (48) followed by Lucknow (40) and Delhi (29). In terms of robberies at residential premises, Bangalore (102) was a close second to Patna (113).
Shockingly under another category of crime —cultural property stolen and recovered — Karnataka (638 incidents) topped again with Madhya Pradesh (124) way behind in second slot. Though Karnataka tops in recovery cases (219 out of 638 cases), recovery percentage is below Madhya Pradesh’s. It is just impossible to imagine Karnataka as a state in which bank burglaries are high. But in contrast to its image, the state accounts for 11.04% (34 out of 310) of the bank burglaries reported in India, second only to Maharashtra which accounted for 20.6% (64 cases out of 310) of the total.
Data for this year is equally disheartening. As of October 31, 2008, Bangalore had witnessed 562 robbery cases — residential (38), highway (21), commercial establishments (4), chain snatching (203) and others (296).