Crime up, so is detection rate

While the Mumbai police claim to have become mightier and more effective with the acquisition of state-of-the-art weapons and systems, they still have a long way to go before they can prevent serious offences and street crimes on a daily basis.

While the Mumbai police claim to have become mightier and more effective with the acquisition of state-of-the-art weapons and systems, they still have a long way to go before they can prevent serious offences and street crimes on a daily basis.

HT Image

The latest crime figures, which list various offences registered and detected between January and November 2010, show that although marginal, there is a rise in almost all offences.

Whether it’s a serious offence like murder or street crime like chain-snatching, there doesn’t seem to be any fall in the number of offences when compared with the same period in 2009. While 195 cases of murder were registered by November 30, 2009, in 2010, 205 cases were registered in the corresponding period. Even the number of attempt-to-murder cases has gone up from 139 in 2009 to 159 in 2010.

There is also a marked rise in crime against women in 2010 compared to 2009. In 2009, till November, 163 cases of rape were registered, while in 2010 the number was 175. The incidents of chain snatching have increased drastically, from 1,475 cases till November 2009, to 1,907 in 2010.

Motor Vehicle theft cases also saw a marginal increase with 3,809 cases registered in 2010 compared to 3,805 in 2009.

The detection rate in tracking stolen vehicles has, however, improved compared to 2009 when 809 of 3,805 cases were cracked. In 2010, 884 cases were detected from the 3,809 registered.

Himanshu Roy, joint commissioner of police (crime), said, “The increase in serious offences is marginal and there is also an improvement in the detection percentage. This is because we are encouraging free and easy registration of offences with local police stations which leads to increase in detection of these cases. When an offence is not registered it leads to a crime taking place somewhere and hence our objective is that a case has to be registered when a party approaches the police.”