Even as the police make tall claims on prevention of crimes, there was a spurt in the crime rate in the city in current calendar year making it one of the hotspots of crime.
The incidents like ordinary thefts, robberies, teasing, atrocities against women and girls, sale of drugs and the rape cases were giving sleepless nights to the Vijayawada cops.
As many as 6,668 cases were booked under Police Commissionerate limits in 2011, against 5,384 cases registered during 2010. Silver line was however, number of fatalities in road accidents came down to 305, compared to 356 last year. Totally 1,398 victims suffered injuries in road accidents in the last 12 months in the city.
More than 500 vehicles, including 15 four-wheelers were stolen of which the police recovered 236 vehicles and arrested 299 lifters. Police registered about 3.27 lakh cases against the vehicle riders for violating traffic rules and imposed Rs.3.99 crore penalty.
Drug cases
As regards sale of drugs and narcotics in Vijayawada, the situation was alarming and the police seized a huge quantity of the contraband and other sedative material from the accused.
The investigation officers arrested more than 100 persons and recovered nearly 13,000 drug injections and 72.56 kg. of ganja from the accused.
Drug peddlers were active in Patamata, Arundalpet, Krishnalanka, Kanuru Siddhartha College, Satyanarayanapuram, Priyadarshini cinema theatre centre and other places. During investigation it was revealed that the accused were targeting students, youth and the poor and are selling drugs in huge quantities in the city.
Atrocities
The police booked 1,699 cases relating to atrocities against women - attacking women and girls, dowry harassment, deaths and crime against women this year, while the number of similar cases registered in 2010 were 1,083. Fifteen women died due to dowry harassment in 2011.
Seven rape cases were booked and 29 cases were registered on charges of deceiving minor girls on the pretext of love.
In all 339 cases were booked against 502 eve-teasers of which the police opened suspect sheets against 128 persons, said City Police Commissioner N. Madhusudhan Reddy. Police intensified patrolling and special vigil had been kept on inter-district and inter-state criminals, old offenders and the accused who were facing trail in various cases to control chain snatching, burglaries and eve-teasing cases.
The city police were also taking measures to take up road repairs, arranging barricades at junctions and construction of dividers with the help of other departments, said the Police Commissioner.
