HYDERABAD: Even as the chain snatchers are having a field day leaving the women folk in and around Hyderabad terrorised, especially in the last couple of months, home minister Nayani Narsimha Reddy tried to downplay the incident saying that the number of such cases in the current year has come down compared to previous years.
In fact, a woman, P Sumitra lost her life when chain snatchers pulled her off the bike she was pillion riding on, while trying to snatch her chain in Osmania University police limits sometime ago.
Responding to query on crime rate in the city in the Legislative Council on Thursday, the home minister said: “While the number of chain snatching incidents in 2013 were 503, 325 in 2014, the number of such cases recorded in Hyderabad is 206 till August, this year.”
In view of chain snatchers creating panic in the city, he said the Hyderabad Commissionerate has pressed special teams into action to put an end to the crime.
“The women folk need not panic. Instructions have been issued to officials to invoke PD Act on habitual offenders. Special teams have been formed and CCTV cameras are installed in all public places to nab the culprits,” he said in the Legislative Council.
He further added that the crime rate in Hyderabad is lower than that of cities like Delhi, Bombay, Kolkatta and Bangalore. He also observed that there was need to amend the existing laws to make them stern and deter the criminals “The state government is keenly studying the ways and means to bring about changes in the existing laws,” he added.
Chain snatching
Cases in Hyd
January-December 2013 720
January-December 2014 580
January-September 2015 231
Meanwhile, Congress MLC MS Prabhakar’s remarks on city police led to altercation between treasury benches and Congress members in the Council. “There are instances where police park their newly provided Innova vehicles in a shade of a tree and play games on their mobile phones,” Prabhakar alleged.
An irked legislative affairs minister T Harish Rao and Nayani observed that the statements were in bad taste in demoralising the police force in the state. They demanded that the Congress legislator withdraw his statements. However, Prabhakar clarified that it was not his statements but that of a top police official which cooled the tempers in the House.