Crime rate increases in Nagpur despite introduction of patrolling vehicles
2 Sep, 2013In January, 2013 the Police Commissioner of Nagpur had introduced in the city a system of patrolling vehicles to keep vigilance on and to check street crimes. For the purpose, 26 patrolling vehicles were employed – one each for 23 police stations in the city and others for crime branch. However, the reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has shown that the plan has not been quite fruitful. The reply shows that the cops in the patrolling vehicles have managed to catch only three criminals till now.
The RTI reply from the police commissionerate had claimed that the patrolling vehicles have been deployed for prevention of crimes. However, the crime data for 2012 and 2013 show that the introduction of the vehicles has not affected the crime rate at all.
As per the data in 2012, there were 144 cases of robberies during the first seven months of the year. The corresponding number of robberies for 2013 is 145. Similarly, the numbers of chain snatching cases for 2012 and 2013 during the same period are 131 and 127 respectively. The theft cases have increased from 613 in 2012 to 737 in 2013. In the same way, instances of burglaries have gone up by almost 33 per cent since the introduction of patrolling vehicles.