BHUBANESWAR: To curb the incidents of robbery and thefts, property offence prevention and detection teams have been formed at each police station in the Capital city. One officer each in every police station has been designated as the nodal officer to investigate cases of snatching, thefts, robbery and dacoity.
“Property offence prevention and detection teams were formed under Bhubaneswar urban police district over a month back. We are assessing the output of the teams and this can be taken as an experiment to separate responsibilities of law and order and investigation duties on a limited scale,” Bhubaneswar DCP Umashankar Dash told TNIE. He said the results in the last one month have been encouraging.
The nodal officer in every police station is being assisted by two to three constables. Apart from maintaining surveillance on criminals walking out of jails, the teams are collecting information from other police stations regarding the recent arrests of the accused involved in the property offences.
On an average, two cases of property offences are being detected everyday by the city police. The Capital city has witnessed a rise in the number of robberies in the last four years.In 2017, 193 cases of robbery were reported in Bhubaneswar and it was 194 in 2018, 266 in 2019 and 330 between January and November, 2020.