On one side, while the coronavirus outbreak has slowed down businesses and crippled economies, affecting employment and daily wages of millions of people across the globe, on the other end, the pandemic has also stunned the law enforcement officials who find a consistent drop in crime rates in the recent weeks since measures were put into place to slow the spread of the virus.
In a piece of good news for Hyderabadis, the city Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar this week informed the media that the crime rate in the city has witnessed "a drop by nearly 10 per cent in 2020".
He also said that 22,641 cases were registered this year as against 25,187 in 2019. The city witnessed a biggest drop in POCSO cases with a 35 per cent reduction compared to the last year, followed by a 27 per cent reduction in property crimes, 26 per cent in bodily offences and 19 per cent in crime against women.
City of Pearls safer than City of Birmingham Palace
Citing a survey, the Police Commissioner said that Hyderabad has emerged as number one in the country in the installation of CCTV cameras.
"No city in India has these many CCTVs. At present, there are 3,61,000 cameras in Hyderabad, which is more than any city in India that helped in reducing the crime rate and solving the cases," the CP said further citing the statistics put out by the Hyderabad police brass at the customary annual press briefing held in front of Osmania University Arts college on Monday.
Kumar stated that 367 boys were rescued and 200 girls were rescued under Operation Smile and Muskan. With the effective implementation of road safety measures, the city also saw a dip in road accidents with 237 persons being killed as against 271 in 2019.
"New York and Hyderabad both are the same in terms of population and area. Both have 1.3 crore population and 700 sq km but in 2020 New York witnessed 310 murders whereas Hyderabad has seen only 64 murders. The crime rate is even higher in London. If we prevent smaller crimes, the bigger crimes will be automatically controlled," Kumar was quoted by the media as saying.
In a report published in MyLondon, a local newspaper, on November 25, the Metropolitan Police said that at times it can be felt that a new murder investigation is launched each day in London, either of teenager getting stabbed or shot at.
Significant rise in cyber crimes
However, owing to the internet usage that saw a persistent increase as people were forced to stay indoors in the backdrop of Covid-induced lockdown, the number of cybercrime cases registered in Hyderabad went up from 1,400 cases registered in 2019 to 2,500 cases registered this year.
As per the international survey reports, the number of users falling prey to financial frauds and social media stalking cases, from the last week of March, has witnessed a significant rise, the police said .
The number of criminal cases registered for various cyber crimes that took place in the city has gone up in the last three years and officials expect it to go up further in the coming years, the Commissioner said further.
"This year, new crimes such as organised online gambling done by Chinese firms, instant finance apps have come to light. The cases registered with regard to other conventional cyber crimes like duping online users by offering different financial schemes and misusing social media has gone up. This has happened mainly due to an increase in usage of the Internet during and after lockdown," said Sikha Goel, Additional Commissioner of Police in a press briefing.
