Ngp not crime capital but among safest cities in Maha, claim cops

Nagpur: City police chief SP Yadav on Wednesday challenged the perception of Nagpur becoming the crime capital of state arguing that last year’s statistics showed city to be safer than cities like Pune, Thane, Aurangabad, Navi Mumbai and even neighbouring Amravati.
Yadav told reporters using a Powerpoint presentation made by crime branch chief Ranjan Sharma that Nagpur with 368.75 crimes per one lakh population was safer than Thane with 711.22, Amravati with 480.43, Aurangabad (471.17), Navi Mumbai (452.36) and Pune (409.87).The top cop said security in the city would be further enhanced within a year with a network of security cameras installed at 712 places. A survey made by the consultants deputed by state government had earmarked the places for installing these cameras for monitoring traffic, surveillance, post incident analysis and crowd management. The CP has appealed to the citizens to come up with suggestions regarding placements of more cameras.
Yadav said unique face-detection technology would be an integral part of CCTV system that would alert the control room regarding images of terrorists and criminals appearing in any particular locality. “Even a person visiting same place a number of times would be identified under by CCTV surveillance,” he said. “Automatic e-challans would be also in place for traffic violations,” said CP. “Even thermal cameras would be installed in places not having proper illumination,” said Yadav. He was accompanied by Zonal DCPs Ishu Sindhu and Abhinash Kumar and DCP headquarters Deepali Masirkar apart from Addl CP Shrikant Tarwade.
Yadav, lauding the efforts of traffic department under DCP Bharat Tangde, said problem of fatalities on the road was being tackled by drives against drunken driving and controlling irregular vehicular movements. “In drunken driving cases (17,981) we have surpassed many other units in the state,” he said. “We have proposed a traffic training school for grooming our personnel in monitoring vehicular movement and acting against violators,” said Yadav. He also said there should be parking places designated by the civic authorities. “More than Rs 4.05 crore have been collected as fine through traffic violators,” said top cop.
Yadav said crime in city was being dealt with iron hands but rued the lack of inter-district coordination and communications within police. “City police are facing grave problem due to influx of criminals from the rural and other districts,” said CP pointing at Khapa-based gang that had kidnapped 14-year-old Chaitanya Ashtankar. DCP (Crime) Sharma presenting the statistics said there were around 125 cases under Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA) in which 221 accused were arrested and 64 minor girls were rescued from sex trade. “We have also returned substantial stolen property to the citizens,” he said.