Women of the district have a reason to cheer. There is a 30 per cent drop in crimes against women in the district compared to last year.
The number of crimes against women which was 452 in 2010 increased to 515 in 2011, but declined to 368 this year, according to Superintendent of Police (Visakhapatnam Rural) G. Sreenivas.
The decline in crimes against women was the result of counselling programmes organised by the police in association with the Women and Child Welfare Department (Domestic Violence Act), besides conduct of awareness programmes at educational institutions and Mahila Sadhikarika Sadassus at Chodavaram and Paderu, he said giving details of the performance of the district police at a year-end press conference here on Friday.
Similarly, property offences, bodily offences, and road accidents had also shown a marked decline compared to last year. He attributed the drop in accidents to identification of accident-prone areas and taking measures to prevent them, conduct of awareness programmes for drivers and movement of two highway patrolling vehicles on NH-16 on a continual basis. Mr. Sreenivas said there was a noticeable decline in the activity of Maoists in the district, but felt they couldn’t be totally written off. The number of extremists who were arrested and those surrendered during the year had increased. Pothuru Raja Rao alias Bhupathi of G.K. Veedhi and Seendri Somaraju of Chintapalli were among those who surrendered this year. The fact that police officers were able to go into the interior areas was an indication of the declining strength of the Maoists.
Ganja seizure
He said that 13,100 kg of ganja, valued at Rs. 380 lakh, was seized in the district this year. An amount of Rs. 6.45 lakh was also seized from the accused in these cases.
He commended Additional SP of Narsipatnam Tafseer Iqubal for his initiatives in checking the proliferation of ganja trade.
He said that three police station buildings were constructed in the district at a cost of Rs. 141 lakh and the construction of five more police station buildings was taken up at an estimated cost of Rs. 584 lakh. The district police have been sanctioned Rs. 883 lakh under SRE and SIS works. An amount of Rs. 24 lakh would be spent on construction of six helipads at Sileru, Chintapalli, G.K. Veedhi, Koyyuru, G. Madugula, and Araku.
