Serious crimes up, property crimes down in city last year

Serious crimes up, property crimes down in city last year

PUNE: Serious offences like dacoities, attempt to murder and rioting showed a perceptible increase in Pune last year, while offences like burglaries, property crimes and vehicle thefts declined. Chain snatching cases went up from 78 in 2017 to 105 cases in 2018, prompting the Pune police chief to assert that special focus will remain on curbing such offences during the year ahead. The Pune city police held its annual press conference at the police headquarters in Shivajinagar in Friday, giving details of the crime scenario in the city in 2018.

Commissioner of Police Dr K Venkatesham said, “Safety perception of people is not dependent on statistics. People's perception comes from how police behave with them and services offered to them. Our focus remains on prevention as well as detection of crimes. The continuous monitoring of cases has led to rise in conviction rate. In 2012 the conviction rate was 19.23 per cent, which stood at 39.35 per cent in 2018.”

He added, “There are 30 police stations in the city and we have divided them into five zones for the first time, even though Pimpri-Chinchwad areas have been excluded. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP)-rank officers are in-charge of the zones wherein six police stations are clubbed. This has ensured better supervision.”

When asked about accused persons getting default bail as the police have failed to submit charge sheets within the stipulated period, the police commissioner said they have speeded up the chargesheeting process. “There have been a few such cases. We have taken note of it and have speeded up the charge sheet process, so that no one gets default bail.”

DCP (Crime) Shirish Sardeshpande said, “In most of the rape and molestation cases, the accused were known to the victims. We have registered and arrested the accused in 99 per cent of the cases.”

The Pune police registered 250 cases under the Maharashtra Police Act against externed criminals who were found violating their externment orders by entering the city limits last year and charge sheeted 201 of these offenders.

VIP MOVEMENTS INCREASE FOUR TIMES
There were 445 VIP movements in Pune in 2014, which increased to 1,086 in 2017 and 1,715 in 2018. When asked whether increase in VIP movements is putting strain on the city police which is always short of manpower, Venkatesham added, “It does put stress on our resources, but we are increasing our capacity.”

PASSPORT VERIFICATION IN 6 DAYS
The city police chief claimed that in January this year, Pune police did passport verification in six days on an average, which was 61 days in 2015. In 2018, the average time for passport verification was 10 days. A total of 1,44,716 passport verifications were handled in 2015, 1,97,841 in 2018 and 11,811 in January this year.

CCTV NETWORK HELPS SOLVE CRIMES
All the major chowks in the city have CCTV cameras installed and their live feed is monitored from the police stations, offices of the ACP/ DCP and from the CCTV control room at the police commissioner's office. In 2017, 109 cases were solved in which 149 accused were arrested and valuables worth Rs 21.07 lakh seized. In 2018, 342 accused were arrested in 101 cases in which valuables worth Rs 74.94 lakh were seized.

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