Prakasam district sees steep rise in crimes

Ongole: Prakasam Police are striving to ensure the preservation of peace, prevention, and detection of crime with the help of IT initiatives and community policing programmes, said district SP Siddharth Kaushal who released the annual crime bulletin for the year 2020 on Wednesday.

The SP said that the Spandana, Online Spandana and Spandana Beyond Borders helped in the increase of reporting the crimes in the district, resulting in the number of reported cases rise from 7,145 in 2019 to 9,095 in 2020. He claimed that due to the awareness camps by the police, crimes against women and road accidents were decreased in the last year.

He observed that the number of accidents in the second half-year were increased when compared to the first half-year in 2020. He said that 618 deaths occurred in the 561 fatal accidents while 1,831 deaths occurred in 944 non-fatal accidents in 2019. 255 deaths occurred in 233 fatal accidents and 785 deaths occurred in 444 non-fatal accidents between January and June 2020, while 340 deaths reported in 322 fatal accidents and 895 deaths happened in 467 non-fatal accidents from July to December 2020. He informed that the number of accidents occurring on highways near villages were increased in the second half of the year 2020 and overall, 150 deaths in 142 cases were reported on national highways and 124 deaths in 118 cases on state highways.

The SP revealed that the percentage of recoveries in property offenses were reduced to 40 percent in 2020 while the same was at 68.70 percent in 2019. He said that though the number of property thefts decreased from 881 in 2019 to 639 in 2020, the total property lost was increased from Rs 7.05 crore to Rs 9.99 crore in the same period.

The SP also informed that the crimes against SC and STs were slightly increased from 174 to 189 between 2019 and 2020, though effective measures have been taken by the police. The SP reported that the number of cases in seizing ganja, gutka, gaming act, drunk and drive, and MV Act cases were less in 2020 due to the enforcement work of the police. He also informed that 3,133 cases were settled and disposed in Lok Adalat courts in the district in 2020.

The SP listed cases like the death of 16 persons by consuming sanitizers for alcohol at Kurichedu, the suicide of physically handicapped woman at Ongole, kidnap of a baby girl by a woman in the pretext of helping at Darsi, ghastly murder of son by assailants appointed by his mother due to his unbearable sexual torture at Ponnalur, a Nigerian help scandal at Podili, a forgery case at Yaddanapudi, abduction of a man with an intent to decimate at TV Palli police stations as sensational cases in 2020 and appreciated the officers who solved them in a short span of time.