PUNE: The 12-member special squad deployed by the Bharati Vidyapeeth, Swargate and Sahakarnagar police stations since February has enabled the police to maintain an effective check on theft, pick-pocketing and bag-lifting on PMPML buses.
The squad is keeping a check on the Katraj-Swargate, Swargate-Hadapsar and Swargate-Mandai routes that had high crime rates before its deployment. Since February, the squad has arrested 12 people involved in thefts on the buses and recovered gold and cash worth Rs1.63 lakh from them. Each of these police stations has registered five to seven cases of thefts on the currently operating PMPML (Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited) buses.
Assistant commissioner of police Sushma Chavan told TOI, “The squad comprising both men and women members boards the buses in casual attire and acts as passengers. They keep a keen eye on the movement of the passengers. They apprehend the ‘suspects’ if they feel some particular passengers are crowding near an elderly person unnecessarily or if someone is trying to steal from the bags of women passengers. The bus is then taken to a nearby police station for further inquiry and interrogation of the suspects.” Senior inspector Ashok Indalkar of the Swargate police said, “We had registered six cases of thefts on PMPML buses between November 2021 and January 2022. The squad is proving effective as we have not registered any case since March this year.”
The Bharati Vidyapeeth police have registered seven cases of thefts on the PMPML buses, while the Sahakarnagar police have registered four such cases.
“The squad members also keep an eye on the bus before boarding them as many thieves target the passengers while they board crowded buses,” Chavan said, adding that the squad members keep updating the senior police officers by sharing their selfies at the bus stops and on the buses.
