Cops report cards a mixed bag

Warangal: Notwithstanding the advancement in technology in crime detection and prevention, it seems that the Police Department is always up against a mountain to climb to keep its slate clean. The annual crime stats suggest that despite a step forward in tackling the cybercrime, the Commissionerate witnessed a rise in theft and robbery cases. 

However, the significant development is that there was a considerable reduction in the overall crime rate during the year, 2018, compared to last year. There was fall in the number of serious crimes such as murders, chain snatching, kidnapping, riots etc, besides a 20 per cent drop in the crime against women that includes rape, molestation, dowry death and harassment. The other development is that number of fatal accidents has also come down significantly.

The alarming aspect that had been causing embarrassment to the police was rise in theft, house breaking, robbery and property-related offences. The Commissionerate police registered 385 theft, 188 house breaking and 28 robberies cases. As many as 575 property-related offences have been reported in 2018 as against last year’s 460.

With 20 per cent fall in the number of crimes against women cases, the police heaved a sigh of relief. After 11 murders for dowry in 2016, the Commissionerate had witnessed four apiece in 2017 and 18. The number of dowry deaths has also come down this year to 13 compared to last year’s 29. Abetment of suicide cases remained at 39 like last year.

Women harassment cases have also come down notably from last year’s 377 to 254. While the instances of women murders had gone up from 11 to 14, the number of rape cases and kidnaps has come down to 49 and 70 from 58 and 103 respectively.

In another alarming development, the Commissionerate police recorded lowest recovery in property offences. While the property lost was Rs 3.78 crore, the police were able to recover just Rs 1.81 crore, amounting to 47.82 per cent. It was above 70 per cent in last couple of years.

Commissioner of Police V Ravinder said: “We have made significant strides in tackling cybercrime, keeping a tab on drunken driving, traffic management etc. There was a slight decrease in road accidents despite the steady growth in the number of vehicles in the region. Due to strict enforcement of traffic rules, the number of road accident deaths has come down from 432 in 2017 to 413 in 2018 so far in this year.”

The Commissionerate has introduced technology initiatives such as e-Petty case, e-Challan, inter operable criminal justice system (ICJS) etc. to bring in transparency and expediating the processes. 

Incidentally, Warangal is the first in the country to implement the ICJS system aimed at integrating the Crime and Criminals Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project with the e-courts, e-prisons, databases, forensics, prosecution, juvenile homes and a nationwide fingerprint data base of criminals. The integration will be achieved by providing access to the judiciary, police and prisons through a desktop dashboard to aid investigations expeditiously, the Commissioner said.  

In all, 6,090 cases have been reported this year as against last year’s 7,837, recording a decrease by 22 per cent. As far as the Court disposal is concerned, a total of 1,182 cases ended in conviction, of which accused got three years or above imprisonment in 78 cases.

The Commissionerate has got a letter of appreciation in recognition of excellent performance in responding to the ‘Dial 100’ calls with an average response time of 6.78 minutes. The Warangal Commissionerate stood second in the State by seizing Rs 11.69 crore during the recent elections to the Assembly.