Nellore City: Thefts worry citizens

Nellore City: Thefts worry citizens

The series of housebreak incidents and robbery attempts on the outskirts in the recent past has been worrying citizens of the town. Thieves have gone a step ahead and are entering houses and robbing valuables at knife point. For instance, last Friday, unidentified persons robbed Rs.7 lakh worth gold ornaments and Rs.2 lakh cash in three separate incidents; two of these robberies took place during broad daylight in Nellore town.

They robbed a gold chain from an old woman after injuring her with a knife at Venkatareddy Nagar and 28 sovereigns of gold jewellery and Rs.1 lakh cash from the house of Sailakshmi in Moolapeta area of the town on Friday afternoon.

Even as police are investigating the cases, a seven-member dacoit gang armed with knives robbed a gold chain and Rs.65,000 from a house in Talpagiri colony during the early hours of Sunday. Prior to this, the same gang entered another house at nearby Bujabuja Nellore, but gave up following a commotion outside the house after the inmates raised an alarm.

Police suspect the role of a dacoit gang behind the incidents, citing similar crimes at Singarayakonda a few days ago and at Rajampeta in Kadapa district on Sunday night. The department is handicapped by insufficient force.

According to Nellore OSD Narasimha Kishore, the department has a force of 350 as against the required 450 for Nellore town. Of the available 350, only 120 are available for patrolling. The rest are drawn to handle various other activities such as security to VIPs, accompanying prisoners and guarding important establishments.

In this backdrop only 15 night beats are covered by night patrol teams as against the 38 identified beats. Moreover, three town, four town and fifth town police stations have been functioning without regular law and order sub inspectors after the existing SIs were promoted as CIs.

The increase in the crime rate led the authorities to bring back home guards working in rural areas for night patrol in the town. They are drafting constables working during the day for night shifts.

Higher authorities have been waiting for the arrival of 300 recently trained constables to overcome the prevailing situation and instil confidence among the public.

Mr Kishore said that they had covered 32 beats on Sunday night and expressed confidence in manning all the beats and increasing the visibility of police henceforth.