The Tribune, January 6, 2000
Freshers taking to crime
From Ravi S. Singh
Tribune News Service
GURGAON, Jan 5 - There is palpable concern in circles of the Haryana Police over the trend of petty criminals taking to heinous crimes. The development had exposed faultliness in the traditional approach of the constabulary and has compelled the higher echelons of the force to urgently fine-tune its strategy.
The new realisation in the force was today voiced by the Inspector-General of Police, Gurgaon Range, Mr Ranjeev Singh Dalal. Incidentally, Mr Dalal has been associated with a number of reform measures in the police administration in the state. Although he convened a press conference to give details with regard to his claims of overall reduction in the rate of crimes in Gurgaon range covering Gurgaon, Faridabad, Rewari and Mahendergarh districts, he voiced concern on the new developments in which freshers committed dreaded crimes.
The recent kidnapping for ransom and murders of industrialist Devender Chopra and his son Abhishek here was his strongest referral point on the new trend. A number of crimes have been recently committed by newcomers in other parts of the state, raising the alarm in the force.
He candidly submitted that the police had dossiers and information on known criminals. Thus it could anticipate their moves or do follow-ups after a crime was committed.
In the eventuality of freshers taking to crime the police has to face a new kind of challenge. In the case of Devender Chopra-Abhishek murders the kidnappers kept eluding 40 police teams exclusively constituted to nab them for about a week. Moreover, the police learnt about the murders only after the criminals confessed to them after they were arrested. In fact, they had been murdered on the day they were kidnapped even though the kidnappers unsuccessfully kept negotiating for the ransom money with the family members and friends of the Chopras.
At the dawn of the new year, the view emerging in higher circles of the force appears to be loaded in favour of a strategy envisaging a right balance of a priori and a posteriori methods of reasoning in tackling crime from unexpected quarters.
As part of the strategy for effective crime control, emphasis has been placed on investigation and collection of evidence to give more teeth to the prosecution part. The Gurgaon police has taken the lead by assigning a quota of major cases under trial to the gazetted officers to monitor the prosecution. Coordination between the government attorneys and the police has been further effected. Also, the police has listed the criminal cases pending since 1995 for speedily taking them to their logical conclusion.
Commenting on the Gurgaon zone, specific challenges emerging before the police are the culture of absentee landlordism. Big farmhouses and buildings are set up in places like Gurgaon and its nearabouts and left to the Keepers and domestics for management. This trend is fraught with danger as often the owners are not familiar with the antecedents of their employees. He also appealed to industrialists to keep complete details of their employees and ensure best possible relationship with them.
He disclosed that a formal request had been made to the state government to increase the manpower of the Gurgaon district police by 600 personnel in various ranks. The present manpower of 1180 was short in the face of rapid expansion and industrialisation of Gurgaon, he added.
Mr Dalal claimed the crimes in Gurgaon Range had decreased in 2000 in comparison to the preceding year. According to him, crime under Section 302 of the IPC (relating to murder), Section 307 (relating to attempt to murder) and Section 376 (relating to rape) came down, respectively, by 19, 18 and 13 per cent. Crime under Sections 395 (relating to dacoity), 392 (relating to loot and robbery) and 457/380 (relating to burglary) of the IPC came down, respectively, by 7, 16 and 18 per cent. Similarly, crime under Sections 458/459, 382, 363, 356 and 354 of the IPC has also reduced.
However, there is status quo in incidents of burglary with murder under Section 460 of the IPC. But there has been increase in road accidents resulting in hurt, even though the occurrence of deaths in accidents had reduced by 4 per cent.
The local police in the districts concerned along with the CIA staff has been able to nab members of 104 gangs, especially the notorious D-gang and Fauji gang.
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