Cyberabad police commissionarate area- crime hub of the State

Udumula Sudhakar Reddy

Cyberabad police commissionarate limits with IThubs emerged as the crime centre in the State as per the latest report ofState crime Records Bureau for the year 2009.Cyberabad beat Mahabubnagar in number of murder cases and toppedin dacoities, robberies, kidnapping and criminal breach of trust andburglaries.Cyberabad is second to Hyderabad in Theft cases, total cognizablecrime, cheating and crime against women.Hyderabad also gained notoriety in crime standing in number oneposition in the state with 16424 total cognizable crimes, 4867 theftcases, 1685 cheating and 46 counterfeit currency.West Godavari topped in the rape cases with 110 women sexuallyassaulted followed by Khammam and Cyberabad.In road accidents Cyberabad topped followed by Hyderabad and EastGodavari.Hyderabad Cyberabad are also lagging behind as most of the cases areeither under investigation or pending for trial.In the State every day 40 persons are killed and 163 injured per day inroad mishaps.As many as 31093 cases are pending for trail and 2942 are pending forinvestigation in Cyberabad where as in Hyderabad 11456 are pendingfor investigation

Shocking teen kidnappings in Andhra Pradesh

Udumula Sudhakar Reddy

Around 40 kids below the age of 10 years are kidnapped every year in AP while over 180 teenage girls are kidnapped each year.

The tragic death of Vaishnavi, the nine-year-old daughter of a Vijayawada industrialist who was kidnapped on Saturday and subsequently killed by the abductors, has brought to focus the rising number of kidnap cases in the state. In fact, Andhra Pradesh tops the country in the number of abductions of teenaged girls according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
In cases of child abductions, only Delhi and Maharashtra are ahead of the state.
Most of the kidnappings are reported from the Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Vijayawada police commissionerate limits.
The State Crime Records Bureau statistics say that 4.7 per cent more kidnapping cases were reported in 2009 than in the year 2008.
Around 40 children below the age of 10 years are kidnapped every year in the state while over 180 teenage girls are kidnapped each year.
The number of kidnappings is higher in the 18 to 30 age group.
In Delhi, 262 kids below the age of 10 years are annually abducted and 166 teenage girls are picked up. A police officer said, "UP tops in the overall number of kidnapping cases. However, the trend of kidnapping children and teenage girls is more in Delhi, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh."
Many kidnap victims are forcefully put up for adoption or are made to beg on the streets. Others are kidnapped for ransom or revenge. Young girls are generally forced into marriages or pushed into the sex trade.
An intelligence official said, "Ali Bhai, who was involved in several kidnapping cases, is now in the jail.He is associated with the gang of mafia don Dawood Ibrahim."
It has been found that in most cases hired criminals from Guntur and Ongole districts are involved in the kidnappings.
"Seetanagram dacoits are now resorting to hired killings and such kidnappings," said an official.

Murders most foul: Killings over property disputes in Hyderabad

U Sudhakar Reddy

In an alarming trend, city police reveals that 60 per cent of the 2,423 murders, that take place every year in the state, are due to property rows. In many cases, people are kidnapped and mercilessly murdered. Whether it's over a small piece of land or a tiny house shared by family members, quarrels erupt, fists fly and knives appear. Some don't hesitate to even hire assassins to do the job.When larger plots of land are involved, things can get worse.Land grabbers appear and more blood is spilled.
Though the slump in real estate business has reduced the activities of the land mafia, property disputes within families and business partners have been the cause for many brutal murders in the city.
Once common only in the faction ridden areas of Palnadu in Guntur and Anantapur, murders over land disputes have now spread to urban and semi-urban areas. "Apart from sexual jealousy, property disputes are the prime reasons for murder," says Dr M. Narayana Reddy, forensics expert of the Osmania Medical College. He adds that while many murders are pre-planned, there are some that occur in a fit of rage.
In January 2009, Mohammed Ghouse and his wife Miraj Fathima were hacked to death by the latter's brothers at Old City due to a property dispute. In May, Vamsidhar Rao, a realtor, was murdered after a dispute over 250 square yards of land in Mettuguda when he was forced to sign on blank papers. In yet another incident, Kaleemullah and Sameer shot dead a businessman Aiyaz Ahmed in August, after an altercation over a land deal.
Cyberabad tops the list of property dispute murders. Around 182 murders take place here in a year.This year alone 105 murders have been committed due to property disputes.
In July 2009, the Task Force arrested Yaseen Bee who hired two assassins to kill her husband after an altercation with him over property. She had allegedly promised the assassins Rs 30,000 to do the job. A month before that, S. Janga Reddy, a ward member of Dammaiguda village, was murdered by his business partner, over a real estate deal.
"The land mafia also produces fake registration documents, registering the same property in the name of several persons, filing false cases and of course, forcible possession of land," said a senior police officer. "Most of the noted land grabbers in the city are either politicians or sons of politicians or they have strong political nexus," he adds. Thanks to this, they easily wriggle out of cases.
In fact, police does not even have a list of land grabbers of the city. The Cyberabad police, who earlier announced plans to start a rogues' gallery of land grabbers, dropped the project.
However, the Cyberabad DCP (Crimes), Surya Prakash, says land grabbing by Rayalseema gangs has reduced in the city."There were nearly 1,000 cases a year during the real estate boom,"he says, adding, "Now we are only getting 200 cases. Murders triggered by property disputes are more common in rural and semiurban areas than in urban areas."

No conviction of fake currency rackateers in Andhra

U SUDHAKAR REDDY
Though terror networks have been introducing fake currency into the Indian markets, including in Andhra Pradesh, the conviction rate remains abysmal. Since 2006, police has achieved conviction only in one case.
The Andhra Pradesh police has not been pursuing counterfeit currency cases seriously though Pakistan-based Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and terror groups are pumping in fake notes to destabilise the economy.
The conviction rate in fake currency cases in the state is abysmally low. Since 2006, police could achieve conviction only in one case.Burdened as it is with regular law and order and crime duties, police has failed to investigate such cases properly.
In 2008, out of 304 fake note cases, charge-sheet was filed only in 20 cases and 212 cases are still under investigation. As many as 72 cases are in the "undetected" category and 19 are pending for trial.
"Counterfeit currency cases are piling up in the state," said a senior police officer.
In the last eight years, sleuths have busted 10 major fake currency rackets sponsored by the ISI and arrested 25 persons. They also recovered counterfeit currency worth about three crore rupees.
In certain cases in which international gangs are involved, investigation had been extended to West Bengal and Gujarat.But no initiative was taken for this in many instances. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) files the cases with Saifabad police, which does not have the staff strength to investigate them."We are transferring the cases as we don't have staff to probe them," said the Saifabad ACP, Mr Narottham Reddy. Alarmingly, in recent instances the investigators found that some bank employees are also involved in the circulation of fake currency.
The issue came to the limelight again the other week with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) warning that ISI has pumped in fake currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs1,000.
The Reserve Bank of India has also issued a similar warning and said that certain banks are not following currency chest guidelines, allowing fake currency to slip in.
According to the city police, counterfeit cur rency is routed through Bangladesh from Pakistan.
"In the Rs 38 lakh seizure the trail lead up to West Bengal, and the accused confessed that they got the currency from Bangladesh," said Mr V.B. Kamalasan Reddy, the task force deputy commissioner of police.
He added that police had not been able to trace any links to terror groups yet. "Links with hawala operators cannot be ruled out," he said.
In another fake currency case, names of three Pak istanis have figured in the investigation. Two key racketeers, Aftab Bhatki, a native of Mumbai, and Babu Gaithan, a native of Barkas in the city, could not be nabbed. They are both in Dubai and the Andhra Pradesh police has sought the help of the Interpol to catch them but nothing has been done do far.
In August 2007, police seized counterfeit currency worth Rs 2.36 crore and arrested a UAE national and three others from the city. But the kingpin of the rack et, Kamlesh, based in Hong Kong, is still absconding.
Even as investigation remains lax, the state crime . records bureau statistics show that there is in an t increase in counterfeit cur rency cases by 66.5 per cent every year. Around 343 cases of fake currency are reported in a year., The police said that East Godavari, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam were the nerve centres of fake cur rency circulation in the state.
Hyderabad has become a transit point for receiving consignments of counterfeit currency from UAE (Dubai) from where it is taken to various places in the coun try.
The fake currency coming to the state is of high quality and RBI officials say it is very difficult to distinguish it from the real stuff. The number of counterfeit cur rency detected per million t notes in the banking channel is only eight.
"A layman will not be able to identify the fake notes,"said the DCP. "Such is the precision with which they are made. They have most of the latest security fea. tures."

Robbery on Camera at AS Rao Nagar Hyderabad

Robbers attacking jewellery shop owner with sword and later stealing the jewellery