The Capital's quest to bring to justice its proclaimed offenders

A strategy is being adopted by the Delhi Police across stations to reopen old cases of POs (who are absconding), reconnect the missing links, and start tracing these fugitives.

“There was a security guard arrested for a murder he committed 21 years ago. When we arrested him from Kolkata, the man had changed his name and even his profession. He was working as a taxi driver. His criminal past was not known to even his friends there. He had changed his name from Raj to Rakesh. There was another person, involved in a fraud case 18 years ago. The man’s past was not even known to his wife. He had left Punjab and settled in Delhi. There are many such cases. The number of arrests will have increased meteorically this year,” said an officer of the crime branch.

A police officer, who asked not to be named, said that until July 15, the police had collected records of 22,684 fugitives.  (File Photo)

This is not an unusual story, for several people in Delhi have been evading arrest, prompting police stations across the city to prepare a particular list of fugitives in their records. And when they did collate, the number of offenders shocked the top brass of the city police. The records showed that there were over 22,000 people who were booked in different criminal cases, but whose cases are still pending because they were evading the law and had been declared proclaimed offenders (POs) by different courts across the city.

To be sure, these persons have been declared POs by courts either because the police could not trace them or because they did not attend trials in courts after getting bail. The actual number of people wanted for different crimes but yet to be declared POs could be much higher.

A strategy was then adopted to reopen old cases, reconnect the missing links, and start tracing these fugitives.

HT spoke to different police officers who were part of the process to identify such fugitives and resume work to find these missing people. Here’s what they found:

The numbers

A police officer, who asked not to be named, said that until July 15, the police had collected records of 22,684 fugitives. Such fugitives were involved in cases of murder, rape, robbery, and white-collar crimes such as fraud and so on. “Of the 22,684 people, nearly 44% (10,069) were those who have been evading the law for more than 16 years. The central police district tops the chart with the maximum number of POs and is followed by north and south districts,” the officer said.

Delhi is divided into 15 police districts, each headed by an officer of the rank of deputy commissioner of police (DCP). The heads of all police stations report to the DCP.

The central district has 2,531 POs. Of them 1,328 were those who were declared POs before 2006, meaning they have been absconding for at least 16 years. The central district includes places such as Daryaganj, Chandni Mahal, and other parts of Old Delhi. There were 2,359 POs in the north district, while the south district had 2,131. As far as POs registered before 2006 are concerned, the north and south districts had 934 and 457 such POs respectively. The north district includes places such as Civil Lines, Maurice Nagar, and Timarpur, while places like Defence Colony, Lodhi Colony and Saket fall under the south district.

The police’s Rohini district had the least number of fugitives, at 561. In other units, 1,969 POs are registered with the IGI Airport police, and of them, 1,608 are those declared absconders before 2006. The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) also has 479 POs and 89 of them were evading law before 2006, the police data shows. Most fugitives in the IGI district and the EOW were those involved in white-collar crimes.

The hunt

During a meeting of the police’s top brass, when data showed that the police arrested 1,089 POs in 2021, former police chief Rakesh Asthana said that this wasn’t enough. “Our former chief said that a lot needs to be done to arrest the fugitives and bring down the number of cases pending closure. The pendency of such cases was increasing because of an increasing number of such fugitives every month. The list was shared and circulated across the city to find such fugitives,” a second police officer added.

Another officer said that the police’s crime branch which was recently restructured and saw a major reshuffle across ranks has been tasked to primarily catch absconding criminals and individuals, especially those who were involved in heinous crimes.

“Like other criminals, catching proclaimed offenders is important and among our top priorities because they are not following the procedure of law and are hindering the criminal justice system. If the alleged accused remains absconding, it becomes difficult for the court to decide the fate of the case. Thus, not only does the pendency of cases increase, but also justice is delayed for the victims or complainants. We have asked our police personnel to trace and nab the POs. Some specialised teams are working on such absconders,” said additional commissioner of police (eastern range) Vikramjit Singh.

According to the law, a person absconding in any criminal case can be declared PO by the concerned court under Section 82 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). These absconders are in two categories — one who was never arrested or did not join the investigation in the cases they were booked in, and those who were arrested, got bail or parole, but never turned up to join the court proceedings or return to jail. Once a suspect is declared PO, they can be arrested by any law enforcement personnel of the country, irrespective of the territorial jurisdictions.

The success and challenges

Delhi police officers said that in the last six months, the police have arrested at least 3,000 fugitives, which is more than twice the number of arrests last year. Among those were people who had successfully evaded arrested for 10-15 and even 20 years. They had changed names, addresses and even their appearances to evade the law. Such fugitives were arrested from cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and also the small towns of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, among other states.

According to some police officers, there are various factors because of which absconding criminals are not traced or caught for a longer period. The prime among them is that the suspect is missing from the address where they were staying at the time of the crime. The fact that there is no concrete mechanism to ascertain if the absconding suspect is lodged in any other jail in the country is another reason for the delay in nabbing POs, said a senior police officer, who asked not to be named.

“Not having correct particulars about the suspects such as their original names, permanent residential addresses, and physical descriptions also led to roadblocks while looking for POs. Many times, the suspects completely cut themselves off from their family and friends while on the run. That also delays their arrest. Sometimes the POs are wanted for non-heinous crimes such as thefts. As investigating officers are overburdened with cases, they focus more on heinous cases or cases having the interest of their senior officers,” said former IPS officer Ashok Chand, who retired as additional CP from Delhi Police.

Among the many fugitives is a doctor who has been evading arrest since 2017. Despite different police teams and even the Central Bureau of Investigation launching separate probes to arrest him, Dr Suyash Gupta, continue to be at large.

On August 25, 2017, Shashwat Pande, a resident doctor, was stabbed to death allegedly by his colleague Gupta, inside St Stephen’s Hospital for rejecting his advances. Gupta absconded after the crime and is still untraceable

“The prime challenge in tracing people like Gupta is the fact that they cut off all ties with their family and friends. We try to trace people like him every day knowing that sometimes our efforts may be in vain. They may have died a natural death in all these years or died by suicide. But we keep trying. There are many on the list who need to be brought to justice,” a Delhi police officer, who was part of the team that investigated the murder case.