Mumbai: Chain-snatching falls in last three years

Mumbai: While there has been a drastic fall in the number of registered cases of chain snatching in Mumbai as compared to the cases registered in the past three years, the percentage of detection of the registered cases has been less than 50 per cent ever since the Anti-Chain Snatching Unit (ACSU) was set up in 2012.

The ACSU, which was set up as a special Cell of the Crime Branch, has deployed about 40 officers to tackle chain-snatching cases. The ACSU had registered 1,954 cases in its first year and detected 717 cases out of them. Five years after the ACSU cell was first launched, the number of cases registered for chain snatching has dropped to 445 and the number of cases detected is 245. Even though the number of cases registered has been drastically decreased, the statistics of cases detected have remained static, at around 50 per cent.

Speaking to The Asian Age, DCP (law & order) Deven Bharti said, “We have identified the police stations that register the most cases of chain snatching in the city. There are women who wear gold jewellery, but feel insecure walking on the streets wearing them. To curb this, we have strengthened our network of informers, and are detecting as many cases as we can.”

According to a police source, the reason for the static percentage of detection is that the police force deployed for this job is lacking in number. The sleuths in the special cell have no transport vehicles of their own and have to depend on the cars of the 94 police stations in the city. When The Asian Age spoke to the spokesperson of Mumbai Police, DCP (operations) Ashok Dudhe, he said, “Areas like Kalachowky, Mahim, Bandra and Sion, among others, have been identified as the most vulnerable when it comes to chain snatching. But the number of registered cases has reduced since the ACSU cell was initiated.”