Nearly 522 people became victims of different crimes everyday in 2015 in the capital, of which 151 were victimized on the streets, according to data released by the Delhi Police. The city’s crime rate — which had increased by a whopping 100% in 2013 and 2014 — saw an increase by just 24.05% in 2015, which senior Delhi Police officers claimed was a restrained surge underlining the city’s actual crime scenario. Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi, too, believed that 2015 had overall been “very satisfying”. He said that the force’s initiative to lodge maximum number of First Information Report (FIRs) had been satisfactory. He, however, also admitted that the cops had failed to solve 96% of vehicle theft and about 85% of theft cases in the last year.
Police statistics show that a total of 1,82,644 cases of crimes were reported till December 15 in 2015, out of which 99,398 crimes were related to motor vehicle and other thefts in the city. In 2014, 1,47,237 crimes had been reported in the same period in which 74,072 cases were of motor vehicle and other thefts.
An analysis of the statistics also showed that the crime detection rate of the police had gone down as compared to the last couple of years. In 2015, the city police solved only 27% of the total registered cases, which is almost 2% less than their performance in 2014.
As far as street crimes such as snatching, robbery, molestation and motor vehicle theft are concerned, police stats continue to show an alarming trend in the city. Cases of snatching surged by 35.71% with 9,422 cases reported in 2015, against 6943 cases registered in 2014. On an average, two snatching cases were reported every hour.
Similarly, motor vehicle cases increased by 40.03% with 31,114 cases being reported in 2015— as compared to 22,219 cases of 2014 — and one vehicle stolen every 15 minutes. Robbery cases also increased by 24.15% with 7,192 cases reported in 2015.
However, culprits in only 23.84% of all snatching cases and 46.82% of all robbery cases were brought to book in 2015, down from 47.24% and 75.56% respectively in 2013 and 25.96% and 46.12% respectively in 2014. The cops also managed to solve just 4.13% of all motor vehicle theft cases, down from 11.47% cases that were solved in 2014.
Crimes against women also remained a worrying subject for the force, with a rape being reported every four hours on average and a molestation every two hours in the Capital in 2015. The number of rape cases grew to 2,095, up by 0.48 % from 2014 while cases of molestation saw an increase by 24.15 % to 5,192 cases. Police chief Bassi also attributed the spurt in street crimes to the cops registering all complaints and police control room calls being treated as FIRs.
