The Hindu : New Delhi News : Law & order: Police fail to comprehend insecurity among residents

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Saturday, Jul 19, 2008
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Law & order: Police fail to comprehend insecurity among residents

Street crimes lead to the notion of a declining fear of the ‘khaki’ among criminals, finds Ashok Kumar

The widespread public perception that there has been a sudden spurt in crime in the Capital stems largely from the rise in incidents of violence at public places. Though the Delhi Police claim that the law and order situation is completely under control, the current situation is reflective of an entirely different scenario.

The police are backing their claim with official data showing a declining crime graph. According to them, there has been 8.5 per cent decline in heinous crimes in the first half of the year as compared with the corresponding period last year. Statistics also show that there has been a reduction in cases of use of firearms and on-heinous crime. But then the police claims are based on registered crime and not complaints which people actually make.

A plausible explanation for the public perception of a crime explosion would also be that there have been a large number of incidents in the past few weeks ranging from snatching, robbery and murder to gang war that were reported at public places. It is such incidents and not the ones taking place behind the four walls of houses or private premises that really create an atmosphere of insecurity.

An incident at Bawana on Thursday where a bus passenger in an inebriated state fiddling with a firearm shot at a bystander and managed to escape was indicative of a deteriorating crime scenario on the Capital’s roads. The same day, a minor girl was gagged and criminally assaulted inside a school at Ashok Vihar by an outsider, showing that the perpetrator had little fear of getting caught.

While such incidents terrorise the public, the police tend to measure all crimes with the same yardstick. This is one big reason why they have failed to understand why people are feeling insecure. It is pertinent to note that while the criminal assault inside the school caused a public outcry in the area, a similar incident involving a neighbour in a colony the previous day did not led to a similar uproar.

A recent shooting incident involving a gang war in North-East Delhi in which one person was killed and then his accomplices chased the assailants and gunned them down in cold blood was also seen by the police as a simple case of gang war. But it sent a message across to the residents that they too were not safe as there was no police presence to protect them from such gangsters.

Conceding that crime at public places creates an atmosphere of insecurity, a senior police officer said the real cause for worry is increasing use of firearms, even in cases of snatching. He said street crimes lead to the notion of a declining fear of the “khaki” among criminal elements.

To contain the situation, experts feel there is a need to overhaul the system of patrolling in the city, particularly during night hours. Instead of putting barricades on roads during daytime and office hours when as it is the traffic crawls, the police would do well to carry out such exercises at night to put a check on movement of criminals. They should also lay greater emphasis on pro-active measures like intelligence-gathering, checking the status of known criminals, conducting surprise checks and raids to mount pressure on anti-social elements. After all, actions speak louder than words.

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