New Delhi crime rate zooms as new entrants leave cops clueless
A major hurdle in solving the growing number of crimes in New
Delhi is the fact that most of them are committed by 'new entrants',
says Delhi Police Commissioner T R Kakkar. This makes it very
difficult for the police force to control crime in the capital.
''About 90 per cent of the crimes are committed by people who
do not have any criminal history and, in most instances, are close
relatives, friends or neighbours. It's not very difficult to keep
an eye on people with a criminal history as we know them, but
what should we do about those who are new and are committing a
crime for the first or second time?'' asks Kakkar.
Most of these amateurs are unemployed, and are susceptible to
stress which, he feels, are the main reasons behind their criminal
activities. ''We made a study of rape, molestation and other crimes
relating to women in the capital and found that, of the 482 cases
recorded, 82 per cent were committed by fathers, brothers, known
relatives, friends or neighbours of the victims,'' said Kakkar.
''Unemployment and family and financial problems force these youth
into crime,'' says Kakkar and adds that the city police's problem
is compounded by the fact that people all over the country continually
migrate into Delhi. He feels that providing sources of regular
income would drastically reduce the crime rate in the city.
Kakkar is all for amending the present law, which permits offenders
to go scot-free despite the fact that cases of crime and atrocities
against women are on the rise. This discourages women victims
from approaching the police or the court. ''As a result, several
cases of crime against women still go unreported. The law has
to be made more effective and made less embarrassing for women,
if we want them to come forward and get the culprits punished.''
Besides, Kakkar says that there has not been any appreciable increase
in the capital's crime rate. ''Crime has always existed but, since
there was no free registration earlier, the cases were not reported.
But, every time we offered free registration of cases, the crime
graph has always shot up. In 1970, the crime per 100,000 people
went up from 467 to 797. In 1978, the figure increased from 424
to 781. The same thing is happening now. The crime rate, which
was 369 in 1994, increased to 538 in 1995."
Though it is easy to keep the graph under control by suppressing
the actual crime figures, the police commissioner was not keen
on doing so. "The Delhi police should learn to face reality
which is why we decided to allow free registration of cases,'' he says.
Kakkar stresses that he is not bothered whether the graph is going
up or coming down. "Our aim is to bring down crime in the
actual sense by destroying its root cause.'' He points out that
the Delhi police has successfully busted several criminal gangs
and put a check on the activities of professional criminals. Crimes
involving organised gangs have registered a downward trend.
Besides, the percentage of crime detection in the capital is much
higher than the national figure. While the Delhi police had 86
per cent success in solving dacoity cases, the national percentage
was only 27. Similarly, the Delhi police are also way ahead when
to comes to solving cases of murder, attempt to murder, robbery,
riots or burglary.
According to the figure quoted by the National Crime Record Bureau,
Delhi's success rate in cases of attempts to murder and riot detection
was 96 per cent and 90 per cent respectively. Besides, though
the crime graph has gone up in the city after the introduction
of free registration of cases (as per a CBI study, 601 cases were
registered in 1995), it is still well below the figures in other
cities like Bangalore (14,011), Calcutta (4,172), Bombay (1,879),
Madras (1,568) and Lucknow (1,454).
Comparing Delhi's figures with the crime figures of other major
cities, Kakkar says, "The number of robbery cases reported
in the capital (5.4 cases per 100,000 people), even after introducing
free registration of cases, is much below the figures in New York
(132.7), Washington (399.7), Tokyo or Berlin. The figures are
also less when one takes rape, murder, attempt to murder, burglary
and theft into account. Despite these facts, we have always been
accused of not performing our job carefully and professionally.''
Finally, Kakkar asks, ''On the one hand, the government describes
Delhi's police constables as 'unskilled workers'. On the other
hand, we expect them to be full of virtues -- well-behaved, articulate
and soft-spoken. To what extent is this justified?''
UNI
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