LAHORE, Oct 23: Robbers have plundered property worth around Rs1.34 billion in the city in the first nine months of the current year. Of all the crimes against property, the incidents of hold-ups on roads, involving snatching of purse, gold ornaments and cell phones have registered a galloping increase.
The Lahore police in the first nine months of this year have registered 203 cases of snatching purse from women against 166, which took place in 2004. Snatching of cell phones is something new, which has recently taken its toll as, on an average, five to 10 such incidents are taking place in the city these days. However, getting such a crime registered is an uphill task. Only 10 per cent of such crimes were registered by the police, said a source.
As for the overall crime against property, the situation is alarming with the Lahore police registering 767 such incidents every month (in 2005). A total of 9,201 crimes against property have been registered in the nine months.
The source said a police official started scaring a complainant soon after occurrence of an incident in which purse or gold jewellery or a cell phone was snatched. Instead of supporting the victim or swiftly completing legal requirements, the police official would leave no stone unturned to convince a complainant not to get his or her case registered.
“You decide whether you want us to recover your property or you just want to get your case registered,” the police source quoted the officials as saying to the complainants as a last resort.
“Converting a robbery case into a theft is another common practice, which the police usually do to keep the graph of heinous crimes low in their jurisdictions. In some cases, the complainants do not follow up when they find that hassles during the case registration are just an addition to the loss they have already suffered.”
However, Lahore operations police chief Amir Zulfikar Khan said he had been doing his best to get all types of crimes registered. “We have seen a considerable decrease in the crimes against property in the first 18 days of Ramadan. We are even registering a robbery of Rs500,” he claimed.
As far as street robberies were concerned, Mr Khan said educated youngsters from well-off families had been found involved in such crimes. “We had busted one such gang recently. Its members have graduated from a reputed city college.”
The police record shows that 26 people were killed by robbers on putting up resistance in the period under review. Seventeen other people suffered injuries during the armed attacks.
Again, the source said, the police record did not reflect an exact situation because the law enforcers usually avoided registration of a robbery-cum-murder case. The police, he revealed, tried their best to convert such a case into a simple murder.
Sections of law dealing with robbery are inserted in an FIR when the crime is solved with the help of an accused in custody and his confession. There have been several such instances, like the body of a computer college student was found dumped in a drain in Jauhar Town some months ago. A simple murder case was registered. However, two friends of the deceased were caught after investigation, who confessed to killing their fellow for a laptop. Then the case was turned into a robbery-cum-murder.
This phenomenon also comes to record when some gang is busted by the police, and its members confess to some crimes, which the police had never registered. Such confessions and, subsequent, recovery of the stolen property is dealt under section 411 of the CrPC. The nine-month police record says at least 908 cases were registered under section 411.
Ninety-three incidents of dacoities involving four or more miscreants, and 1,271 incidents in which less than four gangsters took part were reported by the police. Another 59 theft cases were registered during this period.
A total of 111 cars, 175 motorcycles and 16 other vehicles have so far been driven away (after holding up owners/drivers) this year while 1,043 cars, 1,276 motorcycles and 236 other vehicles stolen.
The police have registered 861 burglary cases and 95 cases of cattlehead theft in the period under review. A total of 2,811 cases under the head of other thefts have also been registered.
PENALIZED: Punjab Traffic Police DIG on Sunday dismissed seven officials and suspended 15 others from service on corruption charges.
On complaints that the traffic policemen were involved in corruption, mainly owing to Eid, DIG Altaf Qamar probed the charges and dismissed seven officers — an inspector, an assistant sub-inspector and five constables.