Ghaziabad and Delhi cops start joint exercise to arrest criminals

Ghaziabad: Police in Ghaziabad and Delhi have started a joint operation to arrest criminals who have committed crime in the neighbouring cities and crossed the border to evade arrest.
A video conference was recently conducted between police officers of Delhi and Ghaziabad and discussions were held to tackle the problem of streetcrime in both cities. Delhi Police have sent a list of 150 such criminals, of whom Ghaziabad has identified 83. Ghaziabad police have also sent a list of more than 200 criminals, who are believed to be hiding in Delhi. This will follow joint raids to arrest the criminals, officers said.
“We are preparing a roster for conducting raids in particular areas. Either a Ghaziabad police team will go to Delhi or cops will come from there to help with the raids,” an officer said.
According to the list prepared by the cops here, a maximum of 15 criminals are believed to hiding in Khoda, 11 in Tila Mor area, 12 in Loni, 12 under Loni Border police station area and eight in Sahibabad. All these criminals have a minimum of 10 cases of streetcrime each against them, such as robbery, burglary and snatching. Two of them also have a history of murders in Delhi and Ghaziabad.
A senior police said most of these criminals committed crime in the border areas and sneaked into the other city to evade arrest. Cops are often mired in jurisdictional issues to conduct searches in other states.
Ghaziabad SSP Kalanidhi Naithani said he had directed all police stations in the district to form teams and arrest these criminals as soon as possible. “We have opened the case diaries of more than 50 of the 83 criminals we have identified so far. There are 25 criminals who are lodged in various jails. Verification of the others is underway,” he said. “Criminals have the notion that once they cross the border, the police will not be able to arrest them over jurisdictional issues. This joint exercise is aimed at nabbing such criminals,” the officer added.
The number of registered crimes had come down considerably in Ghaziabad till July 31 this year, but it was mostly due to the lockdown. Only 528 cases of streetcrime was registered till July this year, compared to 2,535 during the corresponding period last year.
In June 2019, too, a similar joint exercise by cops in Delhi and Ghaziabad had been launched to nab criminals. But the operation lost steam after the transfer of then Ghaziabad SSP Upendra Aggarwal.