Crime against women in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic year was a tad less in Hyderabad as compared to previous years, though the overall number of crimes did not show any significant signs of abatement.
The number of cases registered under ‘outraging the modesty of women’ saw just a 2% decline with the police registering 438 cases this year compared to 448 in 2019.
Similarly, rape cases showed a slight reduction of 6% in the city this year, which is 265 cases, as against 281 cases last year. Nineteen dowry deaths were reported this year compared to 22 in 2019.
According to the data shared by Hyderabad city police, during the calendar year of 2020, as many as 1,043 cases of harassment were booked, which shows a reduction of 26% over 1,462 such cases last year.
Presenting the details at the annual round up held at historic Osmania University Arts College on Monday, City Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said on the whole, crime against women has come down by 19% with police registering 1,908 cases in 2020 as compared to 2,254 cases last year.
A major part of the current year was under the shadow of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic, which could be one of the reasons why high street crimes against women were significantly low.
Mr. Kumar said the overall crime in the State capital has come down by 10% from the previous year with the biggest drop seen in crimes against children. This year, there was a 35% decrease as compared to 2019, followed by a 29% decline in non-grave bodily offences, 28% in non-grave property offences and 27% reduction in all property crime.
He said that a total of 22,641 cases were registered in 2020, while 25,187 cases were registered in 2019.
The Commissioner attributed the decline to their effective policing methods in tracking criminals, constant police patrolling in every nook and corner of the city and 3.61 lakh surveillance cameras. “There is a significant fall in occurrence of bodily and property offences like murders, rapes, dacoity, culpable homicide, robbery and chain snatchings,” he said, adding that the detection of crime in the city is high despite the fact there are vacancies of 34% in the Police Commissionerate.
Comparing Hyderabad with global cities like New York and London, Mr. Kumar said the major focus would remain on prevention of crime by following the famous ‘Broken Windows Theory’, which states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behaviour, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes.
He said that effective crime investigation has resulted in the conviction of 13 people for life in nine cases, while one was sentenced to 23 years of imprisonment and three people for 20 years of jail term.
Patrol teams attended more than 2.02 lakh ‘Dial 100’ calls this year, which is at least 500 per day, and 1,627 history-sheeters were checked 26,511 times, he said.
Appreciating the efforts of Task Force teams in detection of cases, Mr. Kumar said the teams played a crucial role in curbing hawala network, apprehending burglary and kidnapping gangs and seizure of smuggled goods, apart from nabbing drug peddlers.
Declaring their road map for the coming year, the Hyderabad police chief said that they would set up a dedicated centre for detection of cyber crimes in each law and order zone to work under DCP (Detective Department).
They will also start intelligent conversational chatbots to make their website interactive, he said, and added that they would also implement a computer-based inventory management system.