Navi Mumbai police has often been accused of not taking every case seriously because of which they allegedly fail to detect many of them every year.
A majority of the residents of the satellite city, including a section of media, have criticised the police after the Sandhya Singh and SK Loharia murder cases were transferred to Mumbai crime branch.
It’s true that certain crimes have increased noticeably in Navi Mumbai in last couple of months. Crime against women has gone up by 66% in 2013. Several robbery cases are yet to be solved in the satellite city.
Likewise, the police have failed to recover around 70% of stolen vehicles this year.
There might be many reasons behind the increase of criminal activities, but one obvious reason is that the Navi Mumbai police department is facing staff crunch for the last couple of years, because of which they cannot properly concentrate in the law and order situation of the city.
According to sources from the police headquarters, on an average, one policeman protects 550 residents in Navi Mumbai, while there is one cop against 470 residents in Mumbai. Spread over an area of 700 sq km, Navi Mumbai police commissionerate extends from Airoli to Panvel and Uran including the port area of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.
“Navi Mumbai has a population of around 25 lakh and it is increasing day by day. However, the number of police personnel in the city right from the police commissioner to constable level, is just 4,817,” a senior police officer said.
“Mumbai, on the other hand, has a population of around 2 crore and more than 40,000 constables are there to protect the residents. We have been sending proposals for increasing the number of police personnel to the director general’s office, but have not received any response so far,” he said.
Ashok Morale, deputy commissioner of police (administration), said, “The number of constables in Navi Mumbai police has been increased from 3,500 to 4,300 in the last three years. The state government is going to recruit some more people in the next three to four months and we hope some personnel will be given to Navi Mumbai as well.”
“The number of police personnel are sanctioned based not only on the population of the city. The pattern of crime, number of cases registered, law and order situation of the city and the number of police bandobast are also taken into consideration,” he added.
According to Morale, as of now, there are 190 officials in crime branch, 100 officials in the special branch and 850 in headquarters and Taloja jail.
“A number of officials have also been deployed for security of VIPs and VVIPs of the city. However, that number is quite less compared to Mumbai. Even though we are facing the problem of staff crunch, our crime detection rate is far better than the state’s average,” he said.
Fateh Singh Patil, additional commissioner of police of Navi Mumbai, said, “Shortage of manpower in the police department is problem not only in Navi Mumbai, but the whole of Maharashtra and this problem cannot be taken as an excuse. We have to maintain the law and order situation in the city and manage everything with the given manpower.”
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