AI boost for Bengaluru police: Robbery down 47%, chain snatching drops 53%, major decline in night crimes

BENGALURU: With the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in policing, city cops tasted some success; crimes like robbery, chain snatching, house break theft, molestation and motor vehicle theft came down last year, city police records said.

A comparison between the years 2023, 2024 and 2025 showed that major crimes like robbery (down by 47%), house break theft at night (down by 20%), chain snatching (down by 53%), motor vehicle theft (down by 19%), molestation (down by 20%) and rape cases (down by 30%) saw a decline.


This was possible mainly due to the introduction of AI into policing, said city police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh. The crimes that saw a fall were mostly carried out at night, he said.

“Earlier, whenever the police control room (112) received a call, it was handled manually. Meaning, the official at the command centre received the call, spoke to the caller, heard the narration, and then looked for the jurisdictional police station and the Hoysala attached to it; finally, they found the concerned Hoysala, called them and assigned the job. Now, it is done automatically. When an individual calls the police control room and speaks to police, his or her location is automatically traced. Then, the AI searches for the nearest Hoysala to the caller’s location and assigns the job to them by sending a message on their tab. The whole exercise saves us 2 minutes at least. This helps Hoysala staffers reach the places quickly without losing time. Timely action by Hoysala police helps not only in attending to the issue, but also in avoiding future trouble like riots, mob clashes, fights between persons and so on,” Singh said.

If someone wants to alert police to an issue happening in another area, they can share the location or the concerned person’s mobile number for further action, he said.

According to Singh, Hoysalas and their personnel played a more important role at night. “Earlier, Hoysala, like an ambulance, became active only on receiving a call. Now, if they do not get a call, they patrol the area along with jurisdiction police. This increased the night patrolling strength and resulted in finding miscreants on the streets and detaining them. This is why robbery, chain snatching, house break thefts at night and motor vehicle thefts came down noticeably,” he said.

Another senior police officer said making Hoysalas patrol continuously at night gave many benefits. “The police control room (112) receives around 1,500-2,000 calls in a day. At night, after 11 pm and until 6 am, the average calls received are between 150-200, or 10% of the calls received in the day. We have more than 240 Hoysalas, and pushing them to assist jurisdictional police in carrying out night patrolling makes more police visible on the roads. Thus, we succeeded to some extent in curbing miscreants from carrying out their activities at night,” he said.

Since a few months ago, each night, there were 3 Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs) on rounds, the senior police officer said.

“Earlier, only 2 were doing the night rounds. Now, 1 more is added to their company. He or she sits in the command centre and assists the 2 other DCPs on the night rounds. This system brought more accuracy in addressing the issues, pointing out areas facing trouble and so on,” he said.

Joint commissioner of police-Kuldeep Kumar Jain said AI has reduced the reaction time in deputising police patrolling vehicles. "Since AI identifies the location of the caller, manual intervention of tracing the location and then calling the concerned police vehicle is avoided. Here, we save at least two and half minutes, which is a vital period during emergencies," he said.