CHENNAI: A huge amount of recovered gold jewellery, diamonds, silver, cash, vehicles and expensive electronic gadgets, totally worth around `9.5 crore were returned to the owners by the Chennai City Police at the City Police Commissionerate on Monday.
Officials said these were the recoveries made in as many as 405 property cases detected in the past four months, which included 73 burglaries and 152 chain snatchings, said officials.
According to the figures released by the police, the articles returned included about 2,800 sovereigns of jewellery, 294 diamond stones, 37 kg of silver and Rs 55 lakh cash, besides two wheelers, four wheelers and electronic gadgets.
Even as an increasing number of robberies and other crimes are being reported across the city, the police claimed that the number of property cases had gone down this year by about 15 per cent when compared to last year.
According to police, the number of chain snatchings has reportedly decreased by 23 per cent — 389 cases were reported this year until November 15 as against 506 cases during the corresponding period last year.
Deployment of special patrol, anti-chain snatching teams in vulnerable locations besides detection of cases in a short span of time were among the reasons officials attributed to the decline.
Police also claimed that the number of burglaries had come down by 21 per cent, with 333 cases reported so far this year as against 422 last year.
Similarly, police officials said, the number of robberies had also dipped, with 64 cases reported this year as against 74 in 2013, a decline of 14 per cent.
Besides, statistics pointed out that liberal registration of petitions and subsequent field inquiries by the jurisdictional police officials helped resolve petty issues which could have potentially snowballed into major law and order issues.
The Chennai City Police has registered 95,501 petitions this year and issued CSR receipts.
In the previous year, the corresponding figure was 43,619 petitions.
Officials claimed that the number of murders reported in the city too had come down.
There were 163 murders in the city last year, while this year, it is only 126 cases (reduced by 23 per cent).
The report also cited the detention of 1,748 persons under the Goondas Act as one of the reasons for the drop in crime rate. As many as 681 habitual and virulent offenders involved in property offences have been detained under the Goondas Act so far this year.
Besides, 1,067 persons identified as anti-social elements had been detained under the Act this year.