At a time when Covid ravaged economy has very little to offer to the people in unorganized sectors and business organizations are desperately struggling to reinstate itself following the nationwide unlock process, an ominous trend of repeated thefts across the state is being reported.
Many believe that the rise in the theft cases are clearly linked to the financial fallout of loss of earning opportunities due to Covid 19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown etc.
Sources in the police department admitting the facts said, “this is a new rise. Cases of thefts are increasing in Agartala city. In the last months around 20 cases have been reported from different parts of the city and in some cases we have nabbed the culprits. What makes slightly difficult in identifying the gangs is that there is no specific pattern in the theft cases. As it seems several new gangs have come up and they are active independently”.
It actually all started with lifting cattle by mini truck borne thieves. They used to pick up strayed cattle from the city roads and would sell them in Bangladesh.
But of late, the new menace of directly intruding into homes and shops rang the alarm bell.
“However”, the officer said, “barring some cases in all the detected cases the culprits belonged to underprivileged families. The source that wanted not to be named also said, CCTV cameras and other surveillance systems have played a crucial role in getting the accused arrested. In a recent case last night, a spare parts shop was robbed by a group of thieves at Motorstand area of Agartala. One theft was committed in a kitchen-wares shops right in front of West Agartala Police Station in Post Office Choumuhani.
Besides Agartala, in other subdivision towns also the cases are increasing. At Kailashahar, a short-lived road blockade was staged on Sunday against unabated cases of thefts at the girl’s school road.
According to reports, on the intervening night two shops were robbed at a stone’s throw distance from Kailashahar police station. The gang of thieves smartly holed the mobile phone shops located some distance from each other and stole almost all the expensive smartphone sets. The shop owners claimed there were no scope to trace any such incident at the first glance as the shop looked very much normal.
A similar incident was also reported at Charilam where a gang of thieves entered the house and stole gold ornaments worth Rs 30,000. A specific case had been registered in the local police station, police said.
However, as per the police details till July 2020, one case of robbery, 187 cases theft and 77 cases of theft cases of digging tunnels were reported.
