CHENNAI: Criminals in the city are not only employing modern gadgets, but also bringing in "fresh" and "first-timers" into the trade.

With the police tightening their grip, burglars and law-breakers are adopting new strategies to enable them to evade detection and arrest.

Speaking to The Hindu on Tuesday, a senior police officer investigating various burglary cases in the city, said the modus operandi of the criminals was constantly changing in some way or the other in each of the crimes reported.

Fingerprints lifted from crime scenes showed that operations are conducted by at least two to three culprits.

For instance, in the house break-in reported at Mylapore CIT Colony on Saturday last, where the burglars escaped with over 200 sovereigns of jewels and diamonds, police could identify only one fingerprint. The new fingerprints lifted from the scene could be that of the first-time offenders, the official says.

Fingerprints

Similarly, in the K.K. Nagar police station limits, where over 100 sovereigns of jewels were stolen last month from a house in Jaffarkhanpet when the residents were away, only one set of fingerprints matched those available with the police bureau; the others did not figure in the records, the officer says.

"It has come to our knowledge that notorious robbers are bringing in youngsters into crime," an investigating officer says.

Before striking at a specific target, the criminals gather all the necessary information. When they come to know that there a specific operation could bring them a big prize, they bide their time for the final strike, officers say.

Another officer says that apart from the fingerprints of one offender, which were found in 54 crimes committed in various parts of the city, the prints of the others were all new. This suggested that the operator had at least 10 or more youngsters to help commit such offences.

"Perhaps, when the cases are solved, we will know the exact number of persons involved in the operations," he notes.

Additional Commissioner of Police S.R. Jangid has emphasised that greater attention will be paid to crime prevention.

Special police teams formed to probe the crimes are at various stages of investigation, officers say. The fact that the police had detected 80 per cent of the crimes during the last two months should give an indication of the department's performance, say officers.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail