TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: A sudden spurt in the burglaries in the State has given sleepless nights to people while leaving Goa police red-faced. Gullible senior citizens and unattended houses are on the radar of miscreants, who apparently do a thorough legwork before striking.
Police have formed crack teams which are likely to curb the instances. But looking at last eight day’s figures it is evident that they have a mammoth task at their disposal.
Police records indicate that during this period, five women were victims of impersonation when con men duped them taking away their gold and two had their gold chains snatched by unidentified young bikers. If this was not enough, four houses were burgled of several lakhs of rupees across Goa.
A pick pocketing case at Margao railway station and bag snatching on the busy Majorida-Benaulim road was also the highlight of the crime scene. In yet another incident, a tailor was looted of Rs 49,000 by two men. The South Goa police managed to get a breakthrough in all the three cases, which incidentally has involvement of Karnataka history sheeters.
These rising cases have forced the department to re-issue public advisory within a period of just five months. The previous advisory was in December 2013 owing to rising robberies and thefts.
A senior officer on condition of anonymity conceded that they are making frantic efforts to contain the crime graph to avoid another travel advisory by any foreign national. The British High Commission in India, in 2012 had warned Britons, especially female tourists visiting Goa about crimes.
Specific cases of elderly women targeted by fraudsters impersonating police has sparked the warning by the police – the real police that is – to be careful.
“They pose as policemen warning unsuspecting victims not to wear expensive jewelry and travel alone. On pretext of wrapping their valuables, the scammers deceive these women by wrapping either stones or fake jewelries and flee with the original ones,” DIG O P Mishra was quoted as saying explaining the modus operandi during a press briefing last Friday.
The department has asked people that in such cases the person should ask for identification or call the police.
Robbery spree right from Old Goa to Vasco to Maina Curtorim and other places has also baffled the police who have now increased patrolling and deployed additional staff at prone areas.
The department has asked the citizens to shoulder some responsibility to keep their homes safe from burglaries.
It is now to see whether the Anti Burglaries and Theft Cell at the Crime Branch, and the two special teams formed at both districts will achieve breakthrough.
The crime graph of the last week also includes theft of furnace oil at Sancoale and the prostitution racket, though in both cases, the department did achieve success.
Burglars posing as policemen warn unsuspecting victims not to wear expensive jewellery and on the pretext of wrapping their valuables, deceive women by wrapping either stones or fake jewellery and flee with the original ones
