Overall crime down in Capital: Delhi Police chief

New Delhi: Registering over 2.66 lakh cases in all of 2020, the Delhi Police on Friday said crime in the Capital had significantly come down by over 15 per cent. In 2019, the Delhi Police had registered over 3.16 lakh cases and arrested nearly 1.26 lakh people. Last year, a total of 1,09,138 were arrested in different criminal cases.

"Incidence of crime reduced in 2020 because of strong crime prevention measures. Had crime figure remained the same, the arrest is projected to increase by 38 per cent," the Delhi Police Commissioner SN Shrivastava said. However, it must be noted that 2020 was the year of the pandemic and while the city was shut for over 2 months, joblessness had given rise to crime for a while.

Interestingly, given the pandemic, Commissioner Shrivastava said 65 to 80 per cent of crimes were registered online without any police interface. In fact, of the over 2,66 lakh cases registered last year, over 1 lakh were registered online. A little over 86,000 cases were registered offline.

Significantly, while the Delhi Police claimed crimes against women had gone down in 2020, petty crimes like snatching saw an uptick. In 2020, over 7,900 snatching FIRs were registered and PCR data showed that police had received a total of 24,746 PCR calls related to snatchings throughout the year. About 60 per cent of cases were solved last year whereas 59 per cent in 2019.

As for crimes against women and children, the Delhi Police said around 1,699 cases of rape, 2,186 molestation cases, 2,938 cases of kidnapping, abduction of women, 434 cases of insult to modesty of women and 65 cases under the POCSO Act were registered.

Of these, the police claimed around 96 per cent of rape cases, 90 per cent of molestation cases, 57 per cent cases of kidnapping, abduction of women, 85 per cent cases of insult to modesty of women, 94 per cent of cases under the POCSO Act were solved by them.

"There was no issue of jurisdiction, zero FIR registered immediately. Final Report in rape cases filed within 60 days," the Commissioner of Police here said.

Police also said that 62 per cent of cyber complaints were related to online financial fraud and 24 per cent were social media related (including harassment of women, minors, extortion with morphed images) whereas 268 cases of economic offences were registered last year. About 243 people were arrested and 306 cases were disposed of.

Moreover, motor vehicle theft was a common crime heading, with the police here registered over 35,000 such cases along with 1,963 for robbery. About nine cases of dacoity were registered and over 1.34 lakh cases related to other thefts were filed last year. In fact, of the over 18.08 lakh PCR calls received in the year, 35,175 were for motor vehicle thefts.

As for other heinous crimes, Delhi saw 472 murder cases last year - an average of more than one a day. This, however, includes the 53 murders during the north-east Delhi riots in February.

"44 per cent murders were related to enmity, dispute and 21 per cent to sudden provocation, trivial issues," the data showed, adding that 90 per cent of murder cases registered were solved.

Firearms were found to have been used in 672 instances, including 85 such cases where police used it. Of these, 92 firearm instances were related to murders, 258 to attempt to murder cases and 322 to dacoities and robberies.

Police said that about 2,395 country-made pistols, 317 revolvers, pistols, 23 guns, rifles and 5,138 rounds of ammunition were recovered last year, adding that Meerut, Muzaffar Nagar, Aligarh, Agra, Mathura, Ghaziabad, Dhar, Khargone, Burhanpur, Indore, Gwalior and Sendwah, Dhanbad, Khagariya and Munger are some major hubs for manufacturing units of illegal weapons.