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3THE HINDU SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 2015NOIDA/DELHI

CITY

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DELHI TODAY

Jan RISE 07 14 Jan RISE 07 14 Jan RISE 07 15

03SET 17 38

04SET 17 39

05SET 17 39

RISE 16 17 RISE 17 09 RISE 18 02

SAT SET 05 16 SUN SET 06 08 MON SET 06 57

RELIGIONTirumala Tirupati Devasthanam:Thirupavai Upanyasam by Dr. KAnanthchariar, Lakshmi NrisimhaMandir, Karol Bagh, 6-30 p.m. to7.30 p.m.

CULTUREApoorva Nrityalaya:Bharatanatyam Annual DayCelebration by disciples of Ms.Apoorva Shashi Booshan atKarnataka Sangha, Moti Bagh,New Delhi at 6 p.m.

IN THE CAPITAL TODAY

Statistics are merely indicative of trends, says Police Commissioner

Delhi Police CommissionerB.S. Bassi spoke to the TheHindu on the sidelines of theannual press conference onFriday.

Do you think the forcedid well last year consid-ering that less than 30 percent of the total cases reg-istered under the IndianPenal Code were solved?

I speak for my force when Isay that statistics, at best, arenot the whole truth, but mere-ly indicative of trends. If peo-ple are coming forward toreport grievances without theapprehension they had earli-er, for me it is a job well done a healthy trend. There is noreluctance, no picking andchoosing of which case to reg-ister and which not to.

Elections are round thecorner and there havebeen attempts to flare up

communal passions indifferent parts of the city.How well are the policeprepared to meet thechallenge consideringthey were caught off-guard during the Trilok-puri episode?

There are some communal-ly sensitive areas in South-East, East, and North Delhi,and the Walled City. Theseare places we need to treadwith caution round the year,and more so during the elec-tions. Under the new CharlieDelta 1-9 scheme, we cansummon reserve force when-ever extra mobilisation is re-quired. Our men areconstantly in touch with thoseliving in the area to anticipateand thwart trouble at theslightest sign.

Several initiatives, es-pecially the neighbour-hood watch scheme, wereimplemented last year tostrengthen basic beat pol-icing and make residen-

tial areas safer. So whatexplains the polices abys-mally low success rate atsolving house and motorvehicle theft?

Expecting a beat policemanto be able to identify and pre-vent a thief from committinga crime in a city with a pop-

ulation upwards of one croreis not only difficult, but seem-ingly impossible. A beat con-stable does not have the rightto investigate anyone and ev-eryone he or she encounters.On our part, we are trying tointegrate whatever resourceswe have at our disposal, in-cluding CCTV surveillance, to

ensure the safety of Delhisresidential colonies and mar-kets.

But arent many of thesame beat constablescredited with using theirinformation base to solvemore heinous crimes likerobberies and murders?

Violent crimes are differentfrom others like theft. In thecase of violent crimes, infor-mation about the victims in-teraction, coupled withadequate preliminary investi-gation, is enough to join thedots. When it comes to theother category, however, Del-his anonymity comes to theaid of the criminals.

Electronic surveillanceis a key feature of yoursmart city project. How-ever, the Delhi Policehave only been able to in-stall around 4,000CCTVs, while installationof over 9,000 of these arestuck in the pipeline. Anycomments?

We have installed 3,932CCTV cameras at 85 loca-tions, including border checkposts and city courts, whileinstallation of 9,196 camerasat 133 locations is proposed.Till the latter are procured,we have approached resi-dents welfare associations(RWAs), market associations,jewellers and several other ci-tizens who have installedthese on their own to linktheir feeds with ours as aninterim measure in additionto ensure closer cooperationand a better interface be-tween them and local policepersonnel.

Is it true that the DelhiPolice added more headsto the top of its hierarchythan boots on the groundfor actual policing?

We have carried out an as-sessment of our force and atleast 4,000 personnel havebeen inducted. More propos-als to add manpower to theforce are in the pipeline.

Jatin Anand & Shubhomoy Sikdar

Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi on Friday. PHOTO: SANDEEP SAXENA

Empowering women

Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassiinaugurating the renovated canteen, tobe run by NGO Stri Shakti, at theheadquarters on Friday. PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

NEW DELHI: The Capitals roadswere the safest in a decade lastyear, with substantial reduc-tions in the number of lives lostas well as the number of acci-dents, the police said on Friday.

According to the data re-leased by the Delhi Police, thenumber of road fatalities regis-tered a slump of over 27 percent from 820 in 2013 to 595last year. Also, 559 accidentswere recorded in 2014 as op-posed to 778 in 2013.

Delhis roads were at theirmost dangerous, according tothe statistics, in 2009, when2,325 persons lost their lives inas many as 2,272 road acci-dents the highest number ofroad accidents and deaths re-sulting thereof in 10 years.

Things are constantly im-proving on the traffic front inDelhi and will continue to im-prove further with the intro-duction of the IntelligentTraffic Management System[ITMS] sooner rather than lat-er, Delhi Police CommissionerB.S. Bassi said.

Senior officers from the traf-fic unit attributed the reduc-tion in accidents, especiallyfatal ones, to stricter and moreuniform enforcement of thelaw, and an emphasis on imme-diate and harsh prosecution foroffences such as drunken anddangerous driving.

For instance, a senior trafficpolice officer pointed out, thatwhile prosecution againstdrunken driving had gone upfrom 26,633 drivers in 2013 to28,059 in 2014, the unit hadmade it a point to ensure thatmore jail terms were handeddown to drunken drivers, those

found speeding and similar of-fences pertaining to generalbehavioural problems exhibit-ed by Delhi drivers.

The number of drunkendrivers sent to jail last yearsoared by over 83 per cent. Asopposed to 3,628 such drivers in2013, 6,653 were sent to jail in2014, said a traffic police offi-cer. While just 29,045 driversbeen booked for over-speedingin 2013, 1,23,676 were prosecut-ed for the same in 2014 an in-crease of a massive 325 per cent.In the case of rash and negligentdriving, 1,049 drivers wereprosecuted in 2014, as opposedto just 238 the year before.

Delhi roads safest lastyear in over a decadeJatin Anand

NEW DELHI: The annual crimedata released on Friday has re-vealed that the Delhi Policesolved 62 per cent of cases ofcrime against women within aweek in 2014. However, thenumber has gone down from76 per cent in 2013.

The number of cases con-cerning crime against womenreported in 2013 stood at4,906, while 6,248 such caseswere registered in 2014. How-ever, the number of rape casessolved in 2014 are higher com-pared to the past year. In 2013,1,398 cases of rape were solved

against 1,667 cases last year. In 2014, the number of

crime cases solved within oneto two weeks was 15 per cent,and those solved in over fourweeks remained 13 per cent.Also revealed was the fact thatnearly 96 per cent of rapecases reported were commit-ted by a person known to thevictim, including family mem-bers, relatives and neighbours.

A number of initiatives werealso taken up by the Delhi Po-lice last year. Some of themincluded setting up of a dedi-cated telephone managed onlyby women personnel at eachpolice station.

Solving crimes againstwomen taking longerKritika Sharma Sebastian