Snatchers most active in Anand Vihar

New Delhi: Anand Vihar is where the most snatchings in Delhi — 176 — have taken place till September 15 this year, followed by Vivek Vihar with 132 incidents and Seemapuri with 130. Hari Nagar and Prashant Vihar occupy the fourth and fifth positions, with 120 and 117 cases, respectively, being recorded.
Half of the snatchings — a prime indicator of the street-crime situation — reported in Delhi occurred in just 37 police station areas; 85% of incidents have been recorded at 96 police stations in the capital and 21 stations have reported no incidents so far this year, according to the findings of a study conducted by Delhi Police as part of an organised crackdown on snatching ordered by police commissioner Amulya Patnaik.
The study reveals another surprising fact: 94% of the criminals arrested for the offence are first-timers.
Areas like Janakpuri, Rajouri Garden, Tilak Nagar, New Usmanpur and Shahdara are in the bottom-five list, with Shahdara at 10th place with 99 snatchings till September 15.
The study also shows that mobile phones are snatched in half the reported cases and gold chains or mangalsutras in 22.27% of cases. The rest of the snatched items comprise bags, etc. The study shows that the snatchers strike irrespective of a victim’s gender: 50% of victims are male while 49.91% of victims have been females.
Patnaik told TOI that the Delhi Police had arrested 45% more snatchers than last year and also solved 47% of snatchings this year, as against 27% in 2016.
“All police stations have an anti-snatching cell since July this year. These teams have apprehended over 2,600 snatchers since then. Detection under this head had always been difficult due to a large percentage of criminals being first-timers and leaving no clue at the site. Victims, traumatised, cannot even provide physical descriptions of the culprits,” Patnaik said, adding, “However, curbing this crime has been a priority and we have been able to crack down on it to quite an extent.”
According to police data, there were just two snatchings reported per day in 2001. Delhi’s population was around 2.7 million at that time. Ten years later, the city, with a population of 16.7 million, began to witness four cases a day.
By 2016, the population shot up to 1.8 crore and the city started to see 26 cases a day, a six-fold jump. According to police data, from 675 cases in 2001, Delhi recorded 6,965 snatchings in 2016, more than a 10-fold increase.
However, 2017 has seen a dip in this particular crime. Data shows that this year snatching incidents declined 7.16% from 2016, and 5.98% from 2015. Till September 15 in 2017, 6,466 cases have been registered against 6,965 in the same time period in 2016. Violent snatchings, which are registered under the section dealing with robbery, have fallen 40%.
More cases have been solved in 2017. “While 3,005 cases have been solved this year, the figure was 1,894 last year and only 1,405 cases were solved in 2015. The data shows that 4,013 persons have been arrested this year as against 2,752 in 2016 and 1,977 in 2015,” special commissioner Dependra Pathak, spokesperson of the Delhi Police, said.
According to police data, a majority of the snatchers are poor and illiterate and a small percentage are school drop-outs or have studied till Class XII. More than 69% of criminals are below 25 years of age and 91% of them reside in Delhi. Most snatchers (61.6%) are between 18 and 25 years of age, the study says.