Pune police to restart vehicle anti-theft department

The vehicle anti-theft department was instituted in 2015 the objective to curb the rising number of vehicle thefts, but it was defunct from last year

To curb the rising cases of vehicle theft and boost the detection rate, Pune police plan to restart the vehicle anti-theft department after directions from Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta.

Pune witnesses vehicle thefts averaging between 1,000 to 1,500 annually (HT PHOTO)

All efforts are being made to restore the department to its original status, said officials.

The vehicle anti-theft department was instituted in 2015 the objective to curb the rising number of vehicle thefts, but it was defunct from last year.

Currently, Pune witnesses vehicle thefts averaging between 1,000 to 1,500 annually and out of which half of them are recovered by the crime branch during the year as a standard practice.

Police officials said that a team with the necessary expertise and know-how about the vehicle theft cases is being readied. “This will help to detect more cases and bring down the vehicle theft crime in the city,” said officials.

Ashok Morale, additional commissioner, said, “We will study the vehicle theft cases in detail and investigate accordingly, this will bring down the vehicle theft crime rate in the city. Experts will be deployed in the cell to bring about the desired results.”

According to the statistics available with the police, as many as 1,968 vehicles were stolen in 2018 and 667 were detected; while 1,678 vehicles were stolen in 2019 and 546 were detected and in 2020 as many as 653 vehicles were stolen till October 16 and 189 have been detected.

GRAPHIC

Year/Vehicles stolen/ Vehicles detected

2018/1,968/667

2019/1,678/546

2020 (till October 16)/653/189

(Source: Pune police)