Coping with carjackers

Police Commissioner Ajai Raj Sharma has been kind enough to remind us that we can buy cars again if we happen to lose them, but it's not ...

Police Commissioner Ajai Raj Sharma has been kind enough to remind us that we can buy cars again if we happen to lose them, but it8217;s not the same with our lives. So, he says, if you are stalked and stopped by carjackers 8212; the new scourge of the urban jungle that acquired a set of six different faces recently 8212; never try to resist any attempt to rob you, especially if you are alone. Instead, advises the commissioner, try and study the criminals and inform the police.

The alternative, as the police would have us believe, and perhaps rightly too, is to get brutally killed like the illustrator Irfan Hussain by these professional desperadoes, even as you get robbed in the process. True enough, as a resurgent auto industry moves forward in top gear and vehicles keep piling up on our already crowded roads, car-thieves are busy making a capital killing. Which is why, nobody, just nobody dares to drive a car without dressing it up with anti-theft alarms and sundry other devices that immobilise the vehicle in case of a forced entry.

Predictably, however, the highly organised criminals always seem to be able to keep in step with technology as they find ways of busting the latest deterrents that hit the market. Carjackers are a scarier breed, if only because they are known to not only rob the vehicles but also to kill their occupants, in order to eliminate the lone witnesses as well as to gain time.

While it would be understandably difficult for the Delhi Police to piece together the evidence to nail Irfan Hussain8217;s murder on the six car-thieves lined up before the media, it is a matter of concern that despite being aware of the modus operandi of such criminals, the police have done precious little to make the city as well as the highways safer for the motorists. It is well-known, for instance, that these robbers target cars with single occupants at lonely stretches late at night.

Yet, let alone the highways, even within the city, there are any number of fairly long stretches which remain highly vulnerable after the rush-hour in the evenings. Drive through the Ridge from Dhaula Kuan to Karol Bagh, or from Dhaula Kuan to Naraina, or from Rohini to ISBT along the Outer Ring Road, or even the Nizamuddin Bridge towards Noida, and you8217;ll realise how vulnerable motorists really are. If your vehicle happens to break down at any of these places after dark, you would realise the gravity of the scare.

It is time such stretches were identified, illuminated, populated and patrolled by the police between dusk and dawn. Round-the-clock public telephone booths manned by the police along such stretches, for instance, would provide a much-needed sense of security to the motorists, besides acting as a deterrent to the criminals. It is time the police switched its focus to evolve into a people-friendly rather than a mere crime-combat force.