401 among 521 Metro pickpockets are women

New Delhi: The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) launched a special drive against pickpockets in the Delhi.

A total of 521 pickpockets, including 401 women and 120 men, have been apprehended by the CISF personnel, themselves or with the help of alert passengers between January and May this year, with 90 per cent of them being woman.

“A large scale preventive drive has been launched in the Delhi Metro by involving multiple teams to curb pickpocketing incidents, which are taking place almost every other day. Over 500 such people have been caught in the first five months of this year alone,” a senior CISF official said.

The official said special anti-theft squads, who fan out in the metro coaches and stations area with or without their ‘khaki’ uniform, have been deployed on each route to identify the thieves and curb such incidents. They are nabbing criminals who pickpocket gullible passengers every other day from various stations especially those which receive a heavy foot fall like Rajiv Chowk, Kashmere Gate, Central Secretariat, Chandni Chowk, HUDA City Centre and Shahdara among others. Few among these are inter-change stations and passengers here are more vulnerable to pick pocketing owing to heavy crowd, the official said. The force has also urged victims to lodge complaints or FIRs with the police to check the menace.