In a bid to make streets safe for people in South Delhi, the city police has undertaken an audit of its manpower, resulting in more personnel being deployed on the ground to bring down cases of snatching, robbery and vehicle thefts.

“As a first step to bring down street crime, a manpower audit was done and 378 policemen who were posted in various offices and units were withdrawn and posted to the police stations. With this, we were able to run static pickets from 5 pm to 8 am and 11 am to 5 pm,” said Ishwar Singh, DCP (south).

It was found that most of the snatchers are from Sangam Vihar and Ambedkar Nagar areas. So, a planned sealing of the district was organised, which proved successful, Mr Singh revealed.

“Coupled with this, simultaneous surprise checking at different places by all the police stations in the district has led to a dip of 57 per cent in cases of snatching and robbery, as compared to last year,” said the senior police officer.

During the period between April 1 to July 31 last year, a total of 271 and 177 cases of robbery and snatching, respectively, were reported. During the same period this year, the number of cases of robbery and snatching stood at 103 and 181, respectively.

A total of 144 robbers and snatchers were arrested.