The city police plan to strengthen patrolling on motorcycles to apprehend chain-snatchers and prevent burglaries.
The initiative, to be known as Booster Bike Patrol, will hit the streets in about five days, said City Police Commissioner H. Venkatesh.
About 20 such motorcycle patrol, in addition to the existing patrol, will be deployed in the city, to focus on spots selected on the basis of data of the last three years on crime and related details of chain-snatching offences.
The Booster Patrols will keep these spots under surveillance, check suspicious movements, prevent any untoward incidents and also join hands to catch the culprits.
“The idea is to pass on wireless messages as soon as possible in the case of a crime, so that motorcycle patrol in surrounding areas can block all paths leading away from the site of offence,” Mr. Venkatesh said, indicating that the Booster Patrol would prevent crime more by coordinated movement and team effort rather than high-speed chases.
The Booster Patrol is likely to have lighter bikes than the Royal Enfield that currently dominate the two-wheeler force of the city police.
A system on the lines of the existing Crime Stopper (1090) is being planned, which will enable the common man, Janamaitri members or anyone from the public to alert the police in case of such crimes. It will be operated from the City Control Room.
Mr. Venkatesh, while pointing out that the number of chain-snatching offences had dropped marginally in the last month, said the numbers over the last one year were quite high and proposals to devise a system to tackle these fast-moving criminals had been in the pipeline for sometime now.
Final arrangements to the Booster Bike Patrol project were being added and the patrol would be on the city streets within five days, he added.
