TAXILA, Sept 19: Police have turned a deaf ear to alarming increase in street crimes in various localities of Wah Cantt particularly in Asifabad, Ahmed Nagar and Muneerabad.

Contrary to local administration and police claim of providing residents a secure environment, Wah Cantonment is reporting more and more street crimes each day.

According to data collected by this correspondent, the incidents of street crimes are much higher than the official data as due to police officials traditional attitude as victims avoid getting street crimes especially mobile snatching registered with the police.

The residents of various sectors of Wah Cantonment especially Asifabad, Ahmed Nagar and Muneerabad, who become recent targets of growing street crimes, told this reporter that the police staff concerned receive application of mobile snatching and theft cases but do not lodge FIR.

They said that despite warning from local politicians, social and public representatives and even from police high-ups, no change in the police official’s attitude is witnessed as anti-social elements running gambling, liquor and prostitution dens unabated in the area.

Residents of the area believe that police use different tactics to show decline in crime rate. The policy of showing decline in the crime rate is usually employed in the police department from top to bottom.

The conventional methods of evaluating the Police performance are employed even at the higher echelons although weekly and monthly registration of crime cases, severity of cases and number of FIRs are the only methods to assess the Police performance.

The most common practice that has been used by the Police is to change the title of the FIR. It has been learnt that when a person goes to the Police Station to register his case of vehicle and mobile phone snatching, the officials file the FIR of stolen or missing.

Various segments of the society have called upon the Punjab Inspector General of Police to divide the police in urban and rural as due to paucity of staff, resources and huge area of the both Cantonment and rural besides ever gowning population the only police station is proving insufficient.

Sources in police department said Afghan refugees living in Katchi abadies were involved in crime.

A few months back the local administration announced they would launch a crack down on the illegal immigrants and repatriate them to their homeland but no practical step had been taken in this regard.

Man injured: A man shot and injured his nephew over a marriage issue at Mohallah Muneerabad, in jurisdiction of Wah Cantonment police station, police said on Friday.

According to the police, an Afghan national wanted to marry daughter of his uncle and came to meet her. At this the uncle got enraged and fired three bullets at the nephew.

The injured was taken to the hospital where his condition is stated to be in critical condition. The police have registered a case against the accused.