Here's why senior citzen crimes are on the rise: Only 623 elderly register with Gujarat cops

On February 8, seventy-one-year-old Kantiben Patel was found murdered in her Amraiwadi house where she lived alone. According to police reports, unidentified men hit her on her head and robbed her off her gold jewellery. The police has yet to make arrests in connection with the case.

Patel used to live alone, and the police claimed that the culprits in such cases generally find out if their targets lived alone. Such incidents take place quite often in the city even though the police department runs a service for protection of senior citizens. As part of this service, the police encourages senior citizens to register themselves with the nearest police station so that the officials can keep an eye on them.

Talking Numbers

Police officials said senior citizens often don't register themselves with their local police station even though the service has been around since 2007. They told DNA that only 623 registrations had been made with the police across the city since the launch of the initiative. Out of the total number of registrations, 448 were made with Sector-1 police stations, which clearly indicates higher registrations by senior citizens on the western sides of the city. There were only 175 registrations in the eastern parts of the city, which is under Sector-2 jurisdiction.

Moreover, there are 26 police stations in Sector-1 and 21 in Sector-2, of which Ramol police station has not got any registration. Whereas, in Sector-1, the highest number of registrations were done with Gujarat University police station and the lowest with Gaikwad Haveli police station. "In the eastern parts of the city, around 60% police stations only have single-digit registrations which is very less," shared a senior police official belonging to the Sector-2 area. He further added that the number did not include the ones who had died or moved out of the city.

'Awareness minimal in eastern part of city'

Elaborating on the gap in the number of registrations between the eastern and western parts of the city, police officials shared that there a lot of reasons for this including the difference in demography and the level of awareness about these initiatives taken by police officials.

"The awareness is very minimal in the eastern parts of the city, and the demography of the people entails more of the lower classes. Police officials are taking initiatives to raise this awareness by contacting the locals almost door-to-door," said Ashok Kumar Yadav, Additional Commissioner of Police, Sector-2. The officials also claimed that they are ready to help – not just in the light of criminal cases but also for any daily help that they might need.