Pune: The COVID-19 outbreak has affected all ways of life, forcing the biggest lockdown in history with lakhs of people advised to stay at home. The COVID-19 lockdown has some unintended gains too as the trend is seen that the crime rates have dropped too. As the lockdown has reduced the crime rates, in many cases only non-cognisable offences are being registered without filing a case, thus reducing the number of registered cognisable offences.

The Maharashtra government in September 2018 approved the proposal to construct a separate police commissionerate for Pimpri-Chinchwad which till date has been under the jurisdiction of the Pune police commissionerate.

Citizens, activists and elected representatives had demanded an independent commissionerate for Pimpri-Chinchwad since a long time citing rapid urbanisation, rising crime rate. The new commissionerate comprises areas from Pune police commissionerate and Pune rural police as a result, the cases are resolved in enough time.

In 2019, from January 1 to November 30 last year, 12,536 cases were registered in 15 police stations. As many as six out of 15 police stations had registered thousands of cases. However, the number of reported crimes has come down drastically this year. Between January 1 to November 30 this year, 8,576 crimes were registered in 15 police stations, while Chakan police station solely has crossed the 1,000 mark.

Crimes such as attempted murder, robbery, attempted molestation, declined during the period of lockdown within the limits of the commissionerate. With strict action taken by the police during the lockdown, people were not seen venturing and preferred to stay at home resulting the crime graph flatten its curve.

COMPARISON OF CRIME CASES (2019-2020)