In the wake of increasing crimes such as burglaries, chain snatching incidents, and vehicle thefts, the Ramanathapuram district police has come out with a plan to reach out to the people, seeking their cooperation.
As per the plan, the police have identified crime-prone areas, posh areas, thickly-populated pockets, and black spots based on the previous occurrence of crimes such as house break-ins dacoity, murder for gain, chain snatching, and pocket picking incidents. They have been divided into various categories based on frequency of crime occurrence.
The main idea behind the move is to seek cooperation of people in trouble- prone areas to prevent crimes by creating an awareness. Distribution of handbills, which contain details and modus operandi of all forms of crimes, to people living in crime-prone areas is one among the plan.
As many as 10,000 handbills have been printed by the police and they have been dispatched to all police stations in the district for distribution. Sources said that about 5,000 of them have been distributed.
“It is one of the efforts to seek effective cooperation from people, who tend to avoid interaction with police. Anybody who reads the handbill will definitely extend cooperation to the police,” Superintendent of Police Pradip Kumar told The Hindu .
He said that ignorance or lack of awareness was one of the reasons for the spurt in crimes. Many crimes had been taking place because the culprits could hoodwink the people. Some might deviate people's attention by dropping currency notes, while others would offer unsolicited help. But, in the end, gullible people would lose money, chain or other valuables.
Similarly, most residents would simply admit unknown persons, including those who present themselves as milkman, sales representatives, and gas cylinder delivery boys into their houses and would ultimately land up in trouble.
Mr. Kumar said that the handbill had all information about the types of crimes, common methods followed by the criminals, and the ways and means to prevent them. While distributing it to residents in the identified areas, the policemen would explain the features of the handbill.
