Crime in Ahmedabad has fallen in 2014

AHMEDABAD: Cops in the city claim 2014 had been one of the best years in past two decades for the city. While the overall crime rate dropped by nearly 30%, the detection rate has gone up from 68.84% in 2013 to 73.63% last year.
Police officers said preventive actions such as a record number of PASA cases last year effectively reined in habitual offenders. However, there were murmurs of underreporting in some heads.
Police officials pointed out that a major factor in reduction of crime rate was 2014 General Elections as before and during the elections major preventive drives were conducted. Afterwards, police also had to keep an eye on miscreants and anti-social elements as Chinese president came visiting the city. Lastly, as many delegates came to Ahmedabad and many events took place in the city as precursor of Vibrant Gujarat summit in 2015, the city cops were on toes.
According to city police officers, compared to 2013, last year witnessed 13.68% fewer murders, 11.59% less attempts to murder, 55.33% fewer robbery cases and 24.91% less theft cases. The only two crime heads that showed an increase are deaths in road accidents (15% rise) and dacoity (5.88% rise).
Officials added that they collated and analyzed the data for the last 20 years to find trends. They found that for many heads, such as murder and attempt to murder, the number of incidents was the second lowest. Numbers of robbery, theft and rioting were the lowest, as the number of preventive actions taken were among the highest.
Shivanand Jha, city police commissioner, said that the results have been achieved by a multi-pronged approach. "Earlier, police stations were working in isolation where the onus lay on detection squads (D-staff). We now have made it the norm to include crime branch officials in all major crimes, which has reflected in a better detection rate. The strength of crime branch has been increased for this," he said.
He added that the thrust was on preventive actions which were effective measures to counter crimes. "Last year saw one of the highest number of PASA cases in recent years, as we started identifying habitual offenders and externing them, breaking the nexus effectively. That crackdown reflected in reduction of on-the-road crimes, such as chain snatching, which we managed to bring down by 200 cases," said Jha. He added that there has been a significant rise in the number of prohibition and gambling cases, on which petty criminal thrive.
Accidental deaths remains sore spot:
Jha admitted that one spot he wished he could have done better was fatalities in vehicle accidents. Deaths on the road have gone up from 268 in 2013 to 310 in 2014 — a fact partially attributed to the rise in the number of vehicles. "It is an broad issue concerning multiple departments. We are identifying trouble spots and are devising ways to prevent this. Meetings with civic authorities to improve our traffic scenario are on the cards," he said.