NEW DELHI: Police in most of the cases are in a quandary; the time they make an arrest or solve cases, the miscreants would have spent the robbed amount.
In most of the cases, the stolen vehicles from the national capital are either dumped in Meerut or sent to the Northeastern states making their recovery next to impossible. In Meerut, vehicles are dismantled into spare parts within a few minutes of its landing there. Each year, hardly 30 per cent of stolen vehicles are recovered by Delhi Police. “Arrested auto-lifters have revealed that they prefer to sell stolen vehicles in north-eastern states, Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Delhi Police have taken initiatives aimed at better coordination with police in other states,” said Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ashok Chand.
Interestingly, the most of jewellery items remain within the capital limits where snatchers, robbers and burglars sell the stolen items to small jewellery shops. “We had also booked several such jewellers in recent past but a new trend has emerged,” said Chand. These miscreants had started depositing stolen jewellery items at various banks and finance companies where they get easy loans depositing the jewellery. After series of such cases emerged, the Delhi Police issued guidelines to banks and finance companies, especially Muthoot Finance Company, to verify the credentials of the people taking loans against jewellery items.
The police said the arrested accused had revealed that they sell stolen mobiles and laptops in markets like Gaffar Market and Nehru Place. But lately, the thieves have started selling stolen phones on online classified sites like OLX and Quikr. For instance, on December 23, the Crime Branch nabbed one Sunil Khatri along with his juvenile associate who has committed serial robberies and snatching in Delhi. “They have sold mobile phones robbed by them on OLX ,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav.
According to the police, robbery and dacoity take place in areas like Dwarka, Rohini, Anand Vihar, Preet Vihar, Vasant Kunj, Malviya Magar, Patel Nagar and Old Delhi. “But burglary and auto thefts take place in almost all non-gated societies,” said Chand. Burglary takes places in areas like Lodhi Colony, R K Puram, Mayur Vihar, Dwarka, Rohini, Okhla, Kalkaji, Rajouri Garden, Pitampura and other areas where there are no gated societies.
“When I was in the office, I got a call from my neighbour that my house’s main door was open and the entire house was ransacked. I rushed home and found that four to five burglars have stolen jewelry, cash and television,” said Shahzad, a resident of Okhla.
Mostly auto-thefts happen in colonies where there are no parking facilities. Malviya Nagar, Saket and Amar Colony are havens for auto lifters. Similarly, Dwarka is another such place. For instance, on December 2, Riya Arora’s car was stolen from Dwarkadhish Apartment. “Next day, my neighbour Dharamveer Singh’s car was stolen from our society,” Arora said. The victims blame lackadaisical attitude of police towards security.
Police say that the citizen should also play roles in safeguarding their vehicles and homes. “Increasing number of vehicles and growing population are something that our department is finding difficult to deal with. We believe the vehicle owners must also take strong measures to protect their assets,” adds Chand.
House and auto thefts mostly take place during summer and winter vacations when residents are away from home. During these periods, the most venerable are senior citizens.
Burglary mostly takes place during afternoon hours compared to night hours in non-gated societies. The city’s famous thief Devinder Singh alias Bunty had also revealed to the police that breaking in during afternoons is much easier than night.
Investigators have found involvement of juveniles in large numbers in theft cases. Last year, 89 juveniles were involved in robbery cases, 262 in burglaries and 111 in auto thefts. Senior police officers said that it is a very disturbing trend as in 60 per cent of the solved cases, juveniles were found to be involved. Delhi’s infamous juvenile gang ‘burn and burgle’ , led by their leader Sonu who turned adult two years ago, was behind around 1,000 cases of burglary and 20 cases of arson in Sarojini Nagar, Laxmi Bai Nagar and R K Puram. He had recruited around 20 juveniles abandoned by their families. Now in the absence of Sonu, who is lodged in Tihar Jail, his associates are involved in many cases.
Though the police manage to recover stolen items, they hardly go totheir lawful owners. The hassles involved in the process makes the victims hesitant to knock on the doors of courts and police. In case of auto thefts, the vehicles recovered after three months of being stolen are just dumped outside police stations as the victims don’t bother to collect the vehicle since by that time they would have claimed insurance. Insurance companies also do not take those ramshackle vehicles. In case of jewellery items related to snatching cases, most of the owners do not come forward to claim as they have to visit courts around four to five times. Similar is the case with phones and laptops.
