Every year during the annual Sankranti festival, when most of the people leave for their native places for holidays, the police have sleepless nights.
This is the time when burglars and housebreakers have a field day, as most of the houses are locked and the city wears a deserted look.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy said miscreants look for Sankranti as almost 30 per cent of the people leave for their native places and it is easy for them to commit crime.
In 2014, about 16 house burglaries took place on a singe day during the Sankranti festival. But in 2015, the crime has come down following some steps taken by the police.
“To begin with we have mapped the crime pattern and crime prone areas in the city,” he said.
Taking it up as a challenge to prevent burglaries during the festive days, the police officials have decided not to sanction leave to more than 10 per cent of the police force.
“We have started a system called ‘Inform the Police’ to prevent the incidents. Under this system we will maintain registers in all police station and the residents can approach the stations and lodge details such as address and number of days they will not be present. Basing on those details, we will increase the surveillance of that house,” said Mr. Ravi Kumar Murthy.
As a precautionary measure, the respective police stations have been advised to bind over the rowdy-sheeters and petty offenders and also increase the frequency of night and day patrolling, said ADCP (Crimes) S Varada Raju.
