PD Act helping Rachakonda cops curb crime

Hyderabad: Invoking the Preventive Detention Act on offenders is helping the Rachakonda Police bring the crime rate down in a major way. Officials said the detaining of repeat offenders, preventing them from continuing on streaks of different criminal activities, apart from stopping crime, was also sending a strong message to others. Since 2016, 481 offenders […]

Hyderabad: Invoking the Preventive Detention Act on offenders is helping the Rachakonda Police bring the crime rate down in a major way.

Officials said the detaining of repeat offenders, preventing them from continuing on streaks of different criminal activities, apart from stopping crime, was also sending a strong message to others.

Since 2016, 481 offenders were detained under the PD Act in the Rachakonda Police limits. Of these, 161 were detained this year alone. This had an excellent impact as on one hand, the offenders were in jail and on the other hand crime rate was reduced considerably, officials said.

After the bifurcation of the Rachakonda Commissionerate, Mahesh M Bhagwat, assumed charge as the first Police Commissioner. As part of achieving a crime-free society, the Rachakonda Police laid more emphasis on achieving more conviction rates and creating a sense of safety and security among the public.

“The repeated offenders have been identified and the PD Act was invoked against them. The list included drug smugglers, human traffickers, rowdy sheeters and spurious seed traders,” Mahesh Bhagwat said.

“While they were in the jail, we focused on speeding up the trial against them with the help of fast track courts. This approach helped us in securing maximum convictions,” he added. Likewise, 45 persons involved in various crimes were convicted and awarded with the maximum quantum of punishment.

“As offenders were detained under PD Act, the trial was being conducted without any influence on victims and that secured many convictions with a maximum period of imprisonment and thereby, instilling the confidence among the public on the criminal justice system,” Bhagwat said.

Some of the important convictions included life imprisonment and imprisonment ranging from three to 10 years during this period. In one case in Maheshwaram, the police were successful in securing 20 years imprisonment for four persons from Odisha in a gang rape case. In 2019, serial sexual offender A Ravi Shekhar who sexually assaulted a B Pharmacy girl in Hayathnagar was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The police were also successful in securing convictions to notorious gangs like the Guman Gang, Chaddi Gang and Butul Gang. Several rowdy sheeters too were sentenced to imprisonment during the period.

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