Madhya Pradesh: Police Project Robberies As Thefts To Avoid Harming Their Image

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Of late, the conduct of several police personnel has come into question as they register cases of thefts even when robberies take place. This is done to conceal the crime, specially at initial stage. It is only when police crack the case that they reveal it was robbery. On April 29, Ayodhya Nagar police station staff arrested two persons in connection with 11 robbery incidents.

The accused had committed robberies in Bhopal, Sehore and Indore. One of the complainants Brijesh Jatav had lodged a complaint at the police station about robbery. However, his case was registered under IPC sections of theft. After the police cracked the case and arrested the accused, they revealed that the total cost of robbed cell phones was Rs 3 lakh.

In mid-April, another cell phone snatching incident was reported from TT Nagar wherein the mobile phone of doctor Neelendra Shrivastava was snatched by unidentified robbers when he was walking on the main road during night. The TT Nagar police too registered a normal theft case without imposing robbery sections on the accused.

It also came to light that the police had registered a case after 10 days, which caused immense inconvenience to Shrivastava. A Habibganj police station sub-inspector wishing anonymity said that towards the end of the year, when all the crimes across the city are compiled, scores of robbery cases are converted into theft incidents ones to conceal the number of serious crimes.

Sources at Bhopal police commissionerate maintained that several station house officers (SHOs) deliberately registered robbery cases as cases of theft. This is because they do not want their area to be portrayed in bad light or labelled as nefarious. When contacted, Additional DCP (crime) Shailendra Singh Chouhan told Free Press that in cases of robbery where external force was applied, the police always registered criminal cases under robbery sections.