Mumbai: Criminals made Rs 303.79 crore out of theft, robberies in city in last 4 years

In order to increase detection and recovery in these cases, city police have set up dedicated detection teams at all the police stations comprising two officers and a few constables who work in two shifts. The teams are headed by a police inspector (crime). “To make good recovery, early detection is paramount. But on an average, the detection teams handle over 50 crime cases at a time and depending on the police station, the number of cases handled by them goes up to 100 cases at a time making it an uphill task,” said an inspector posted in the city.

“Further, these detection officers have no special training like cyber officers do and have to develop their own skills while they are in the detection unit for a period of two years and share their techniques of solving crimes with detection officers from other police stations,” he added.

Police hope their detection will improve as the numbers of CCTV cameras installed by the government in the city increases from 5,000-odd cameras to around 10,000. An assistant inspector posted as detection officer in the city said, “For early detection, CCTV cameras and criminal records of accused need to be checked quickly. But there are hurdles as sometimes CCTV cameras are not there at the spot or quality of camera is poor or it’s not in a working condition.”

“Further, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) which maintains a database of criminals needs to have comprehensive information which will take more time to be updated,” the officer added.

The officers also face issues in recovering certain valuables which are disposable. A sub inspector who has worked as detection officer in the past said, “Recovery of disposable valuables like gold, cash, electronic items is very difficult. There are several instances where criminals flee the city and tracking them quickly is needed, which does not happen. Criminals splurge the stolen money and sell gold to jewellers who deny buying it. In cases of electronic items like phones, they change its IMEI number or sell off the spare parts.”

Police sources also said that it is difficult to track new criminals and that they keep coming up with new techniques. Furthermore, bandobast duties keep them busy. “Our workload is increasing by day. Nowadays, due to communal and political issues, bandobast also increases and we are roped in. Mobile and vehicle thefts are on the rise. Sometimes, hours are spent tracking missing valuables like gold, laptops, phones forgotten in rickshaws or cabs where FIRs are not taken,” said another detection officer.