Kalyan residents keep night vigil

March 3: Two persons attack the guard of Casablanca building before breaking into two of the society’s flats early in the morning.

March 5: Two persons attack the guard of Shri Ramkrishna complex and take away his wages.

The recent spate of robberies in areas falling under the jurisdiction of Mahatma Phule police station, Kalyan, and Zone III of Thane police commissionerate, has had local residents spending sleepless nights. Especially unsafe are Sindhigate, Purnima Talkies and its neighbouring areas dotted with housing societies.

The situation is so bad that residents of the Shri Ramkrishna complex have decided not to rely on the police any longer.Instead, they’ve set up their own vigilance squads as a safeguard. "We’ve chosen to keep vigil ourselves," said I V Podar, a local resident. "We patrol out society in two batches, one till 2.00 am and the other after that." Armed with lathis and hockey sticks, the building’s women also join the men in the vigil. The security guard Indrasen Morarji, who was attacked with a metal duster around 2.30 am on March 6, is in a critical state at KEM hospital. "Two persons jumped over the wall and asked me if I had seen any thieves," he recounted when contacted at KEM. When he replied in the negative, they accused him of hiding the thieves. "They then began beating me up," he said, adding, "One of them was wearing a metal knuckle guard with which he kept hitting me on the head till I fell unconscious." The duo then snatched his wallet containing his salary (Rs 1000), and fled.

On March 13, the team keeping vigil heard a sound from the rear part of the society at 4.30 am. They rushed to find two intruders trying toscale the building’s wall. Alerted by residents’ cries and the sound of the newly installed burglar alarm, the robbers fled.

Though residents are unanimous that the police haven’t been able to instill a sense of security among locals. "I had to go to Rajasthan for a wedding, leaving my son and daughter home, but now I can’t," said Mrs Solanki, who lives in the society nearby. "For people like us, our little possessions are everything, and even small thefts can be traumatic," she added.

Police have their own problems. Inadequate staff strength being one of them. For a population of 2.5 lakh, this area has a police strength of only 2 PIs, 4 APIs, 26 constables, 118 police constables, and two women constables. A police official, preferring anonymity, said understaffing is a problem in all of Thane’s police stations. Agreeing that incidents of house-breaking and burglary had "increased in the past few days," DCP of Zone III Shrikant Savarkar nevertheless pointed out, "The problem isn’t as acute as it’s madeout to be."

According to him, the man-power at his disposal had been diverted due to Lok Sabha polls first and later the strike by non-teaching college staff.