Just when the City police were heaving a sigh of relief with crime records showing a dip in the number of chain-snatching cases, another mode of crime is slowly threatening to create more headaches for them.
Burglars, it is slowly emerging, are posing problems not just for the City police, but for the Thiruvananthapuram Rural police as well. A series of burglaries has been keeping the Rural police busy, with the City police too now busy trying to trace the gang that struck twice in the same night at Nemom. Here too, as in the recent trend of criminals from outside the State operating smoothly and escaping, doubts have been raised of a Tamil Nadu touch to the burglaries.
The gang, the police say, is quite ‘fearless,’ waking up residents and then threatening them with knives to loot them. Strengthen your doors and locks, and be on the vigil, with the phone numbers of the nearest police station always at hand could be the only message that the police can give the public, as of now.
The by-election in Aruvikkara has brought smiles on the faces of owners of hotels and snack bars, which see a huge rush of activists of political parties who are in midst of hectic campaigning. Hotels and bakeries are having good times in terms of sales with a large number of cadres staying put in the constituency till the polling day. Hotels owners, particularly those at Aryanad, which has become the base for all three major political parties in the fray, have reaped the best returns. Fuel stations are also having good business for the past 15 days.
(Reporting by Dennis Marcus Mathew and Rajesh B. Nair)
