The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Police response to crime comes under sharp focus

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Tuesday, Sep 30, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Police response to crime comes under sharp focus

The police have not acted properly in cases related to Shamshabad gold theft and attack on actor-couple,writes Marri Ramu

The recent robbery at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad and the attack by alleged Telangana Rashtra Samiti activists on Lanco corporate office at Banjara Hills four days ago have no connection. But, the immediate reaction of the police to the two incidents -- the first one purely a property crime and the other having political consequences -- has come under sharp focus.

Time and again, top police officials have been claiming that making police respond to law and order problem as quickly as possible is top on their agenda. In many cases, be it communal riots or dacoities, swift reaction from police had prevented incidents while delayed response only resulted in havoc.

Cyberabad police recovered the entire Rs. 1.10 crore worth gold jewellery in the airport robbery case within days. However, the confession of two accused in the case that they had returned to city after fleeing from the airport with the stolen jewellery raised some questions.

Police claim

Police claim that they had received information about robbery at the airport nearly 30 minutes after it was committed. The first thing law-enforcing agencies would do in such a situation is to seal all the entry and exit points around the city and check vehicles coming into and going out of city.

Barricades should have been placed on all roads directly or indirectly connected to Shamshabad and surrounding districts. Unfortunately, it did not happen.

The accused maintained that they drove away the in courier agency car before abandoning it at Lingalaguda on Mahabubnagar route.

From there, they boarded a jeep to go to Bangalore, but got down en route as the driver said it was heading towards some other destination.

Later, the accused returned to city in an RTC bus and took shelter in the house of their associates while special police parties went to different States looking out for them. Had the police alerted their counterparts in surrounding districts and checked all vehicles, probably the robbers would have been caught while travelling in the jeep or the bus. This is not first such incident.

Proposals mooted

When dacoits struck at a jewellery shop at Abids a few years ago and took away the booty in a vehicle narrowly missing a road accident near Kukatpally, several proposals were mooted on how to quickly respond to such incidents and bring in co-ordination among different police units.

The government transferred Banjara Hills police station Inspector stating that his response to the attack on Lanco office was late and failed to prevent it.

In the case of attack on actor couple Rajashekhar and Jeevitha - this too happened in West Zone area - also police higher-ups felt that field level police staff did not react to the incident properly.

It is to be seen if the government brings in total changes in the manner the police respond to emergency situations or confines itself to initiating disciplinary actions on individual officers.

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