City is con capital

Udumula Sudhakar Reddy
4th Nov 2008
Hyderabad has earned the dubious distinction of being the “cheating capital” of the country.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the state has the highest number of gambling Act violators, bodily crime offenders and women-related crimes.
While Guntur has the highest number of sexual harassment cases, Vijayawada has the most gam bling cases and around 10,000 special local law cases.
On average, Hyderabad records the highest number of cheating cases every year. According to the NCRB, Bengaluru tops in robberies, Delhi in kidnappings and Mumbai in burglaries.
The crime statistics from Cyberabad are excluded from Hyderabad.
The commissioner of police, Mr B. Prasada Rao, said, “Hyderabad has wit nessed a software and job consultancy boom in the recent years. This has increased the number of cheating cases. Frauds related to financial institutions, chit fund, land registration, data entry work and software jobs have been registered on large scale.” He added that though Nigerian frauds have decreased after the police department launched a website, most of the victims don’t take any precautions. The cheating cases included false gift schemes, money circulation schemes, multilevel marketing schemes, promise of high rate of interest on deposits, plantation and real estate schemes.
“The scamsters throw frequent cocktail parties, lavish dinners and offer gifts like cars and plots. They develop personal friendship with bureaucrats and politicians and exploit it for personal gains. However, they close shop soon after collecting the deposits,” said an official of the state crime records bureau (SCRB).
The SCRB analysis found that territorial clusters including Hyderabad and Cyberabad, Vijayawada, Karimnagar, Guntur, West Godavari and Visakhapatnam accounted for most of the white collar crimes.
Even in criminal cases, Hyderabad ranked fourth (after Mumbai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad).
A senior police official said, “In some north Indian states, most of the criminal cases are not registered. In AP, the police registers almost all the cases.” Around 23.9 per cent of the total cases booked in the country under the Gambling Act are from Andhra Pradesh (41,488).
Cases of unidentified bodies, possibly murders, are reported the most from AP after Maharashtra. In AP, an average of 5,417 unidentified bodies are found annually against 5,973 in Maharashtra.
A police official said, “Cases of unidentified bodies are reported mostly from Cyberabad. Several people involved in real estate disputes and sex workers are killed and their bodies are dumped in the city outskirts.” After Delhi and Maharashtra, minor rape cases too are the highest in the state. While there were 195 cases of minor rapes being reported annually in Maharashtra, AP followed closely with 174 cases. In crimes against women, AP was second only to Delhi.
The state also accounts for 86.2 per cent of cases under the Indecent Representation of Women Prevention Act in the country with 1,347 cases per year.
Andhra Pradesh has reported the highest number (11,489) of negligence leading to death cases followed by Maharashtra (10,933) and Tamil Nadu (10,792).