Overworked cops ignore minor thefts?

To quote a recent example, a boy at Virugambakkam lost his bicycle from a parking lot in the evening a week ago. Images in one of the CCTVs in the vicinity clearly showed, a young man with a lean physique walking into the parking lot and breaking open the lock with a cutting player and escaping with the bicycle. Armed with this clip, the boy’s parents approached the police with the hope of getting the vehicle back soon. 

But, they ended up getting only a stereotype reply of ‘we will look into it. The parents knew that police would never look in to it. Same has been the response to most cases, when victims of small thefts, highway robbery or chain snatching walk into police stations in the city. However, the treatment given to cases of robbery in which the value of the lost materials is high is completely different. 

City police jumps into action instantly if it is high-profile case or the value of the robbed articles is high. “Most of the smaller thefts and robbery are dismissed without investigation and this attitude has emboldened the criminals,” a senior police official himself admit. However, he was quick to add that the police alone cannot be blamed as they are doing their best with the available strength. “In each police station, there will be a large number of high-profile cases that demand their full attention. So it is natural that they may not get enough time to probe minor thefts and chain snatching cases,” the police official added. 

However, officials admit that this has turned out to be an advantage for the criminals to have an easy run in the city. The officials say that it was not the question of the amount, but the seriousness of the crime. “If a man has the courage to point a knife at a person and rob, in the long run he will have the courage to even kill a person to get the valuables. So we will have to let him know that he is not going to get away even if he robs Rs 10 from a person through violent means,” a police officer said.