VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh has witnessed 21% increase in crimes against women this year by recording 17,736 cases, compared to 14,603 cases last year.
The State government’s decision to act tough against smuggling of narcotics and harmful substances has yielded good results as the Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB) has destroyed ganja crop in 7,226 acres in the Agency areas of Visakhapatnam and East Godavari districts under Operation Parivarthana in November and December. The total ganja crop destroyed by the SEB is worth Rs 8,875 crore in the open market.
At the year-end annual crime review briefing to media persons on Tuesday, Director General of Police Gautam Sawang attributed the increase in the number of cases to the ‘Free registration of FIRs’ and various outreach programmes initiated by the State police.
The outreach programmes have accounted for the registration of 36% of cases. A total of 1,27,127 cases pertaining to various cognizable crimes have been reported in the State this year as against 1,22,987 cases in 2020. Of the total, crimes against women account for 14% (17,736 cases), bodily offences 17%, road accident cases 14% property offences 11%, white-collar offences 7% and other crimes under IPC sections 37%.
According to the statistics, the highest number of crimes against women have been reported in 2021, compared to 14,813 cases in 2017, 14,338 in 2018, 15,665 in 2019 and 14,603 in 2020.
Reforms in police functioning, achieving transparency are goals ahead, says DGP
“The increase in number of cases indicates that police are acting tough and observing zero tolerance towards crimes against women and children. The rise in number of cases registered reflects police efficiency,” DGP Gautam Sawang said.
The SEB has destroyed ganja crop worth Rs 8,875 crore in the open market. In addition, it has also seized ganja worth Rs 314 crore. With the tough measures taken by the police, ganja smuggling is expected to come down in 2022, the DGP said.
Reiterating that AP police are pioneers in adopting technology in policing, Sawang said the State stood first in the country in various fields such as efficiency and performance and added that the awards bagged speak for itself.
“In the survey carried out by the Indian Police Foundation on Smart Policing, we stood first and bagged more than 150 national level awards from the Ministry of External Affairs, Home Affairs, SKOCH, NCRB, FICCI and others. State police stood first in developing chance fingerprints and passport verification, the DGP said.
Matrix of Change
The police are trying to bring a change in the functioning of department by implementing the ‘Matrix of Change and Transformation’ policy. “We are putting police under the scrutiny to increase transparency and focusing on capacity building to provide better services to people,” the DGP said