NEW DELHI: The petty criminals of Delhi are an innovative lot, and no one knows it better than the lowest rung of the Delhi Police. These criminals can invoke excuses ranging from being infected with the deadly AIDS virus—so as to put the fear of transferring infection in a constable’s mind—to making emotional appeals of relationships under stress, just to obtain a lenient gaze of the khaki.
A senior police official said that some criminals go to the extent of physically harming themselves to such an extent that blood oozes out of their bodies. “Then they claim that they are HIV positive and expect the police personnel not to touch them,” he said. The fear of exposure to the virus is a real possibility, which sometimes forces the police to leave the spot.
The officer said that it is common for petty criminals to make emotional excuses. “Every accused says it is their first crime—an inadvertent mistake—for which no serious section of the rule book should be invoked,” he said. Other common emotional excuses include “My mother is unwell and needed money for treatment” and “I am unemployed and could not have supported my family without committing the alleged crime”, he added. A young sister whose marriage is stuck for lack of family funds is a refrain that recurs before every police action in the cases of petty crimes.
Among the younger lot of criminals, among whom motorcycle-theft incidents are common, the accused tend to put the blame of motivation for the crime on real or imaginary girlfriends. “Many of those caught in such cases claim they need money to maintain a relationship or impress their girlfriends. They often justify their actions by saying that they wanted to afford the girlfriend’s expenses or use the motorcycle to impress her,” the officer explained.
When the emotional card fails, the senior police official said, attempts to bribe the police are the next most common ploy. Street criminals try to negotiate on the spot, promising household valuables or money to constables to avoid being subjected to the legal process.
Many criminals try to introduce an element of disgust in the sequence through the actual use of human excreta. In March last year, a 27-year-old man, accused of being involved in pick-pocketing, was nabbed. He defecated in the pants several times to keep police personnel away. He was eventually arrested after the police personnel neutralised his strategy using gloves and masks.
When all else fails, offenders try to create chaos, resist the arrest physically, or attract public attention through loud and aggressive behaviour in the hope of complicating the arrest process. However, these tactics are mostly undone by the police through counter-strategy, said the senior official.