Curbing crime in Ludhiana: Repeated offenders under police scanner

To curtail the tendency of continuing to commit crime even after coming out on bail, the Ludhiana Police Commissionerate has asked heads of all police stations and crime wings to keep a tab over repeated offenders. To keep the criminals under watch, the Ludhiana police have been daily checking the list of inmates being bailed out from jail or those who have jumped parole as well.

Though the system was in place for a long time, it was not being optimally used. Now, it has been streamlined and accountability of SHOs and crime wing heads have been fixed for mandating them to update the details of bailed out and parole jumpers in record books.

Revealing more about the initiative which helps in crime prevention, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Investigation) Shubham Aggarwal told The Tribune here on Tuesday that during recent arrests of snatchers, robbers and even drug peddlers, it was noticed that most of them were repeated offenders. Now, to deter the bailed out criminals from repeating crime after coming out of jail, a daily data of bailed out criminals is being shared with police station heads and in-charges of crime wings.

“Daily, on an average, seven to 10 criminals are getting bails and coming out of jail, this include parole jumpers as well. Every evening, the police are getting a list of bailed-out persons from the Superintendent of Central Jail, Ludhiana. After getting the list, we share it with SHOs of all police stations and crime wings in-charges so that they can update the list of such persons in their records,” Aggarwal said.

He asserted that after getting the list of such criminals, it was responsibility of SHOs to keep a watch over them as per the nature of the crime they were involved in.

“The police usually keep a tab over criminals getting out on bail in drug peddling cases, snatching, robberies and other heinous crimes as they repeat such crimes more often. If required, the SHOs can ask the suspects to visit the police station as it serves as a deterrence for the latter” the DCP said.

If every police station will have the updated data of bailed-out criminals or bail jumpers, it would also help in crime detection. After every crime, the police can scan the list of bailed-out criminals, their location at the time of crime, he said.

“The city police recently arrested some snatchers and robbers, who were repeated offenders, with the help of this system,” the DCP claimed.