NAVI POLICE TO REINVESTIGATE UNSOLVED CASES OF LAST 5 YEARS

NAVI MUMBAI: In an effort to make the city safer for women by putting all the perpetrators behind the bars, the Navi Mumbai police have decided to reinvestigate the undetected cases of ‘crime against women’ that they registered in the past five years.

The move came after a 32-year-old woman was raped inside a stationary vehicle at Sakinaka in Mumbai last week.

Pravin Patil, DCP (crime), said, “If a criminal, after assaulting a woman, roams freely on the city roads, he will try to assault other women too. Therefore, we have asked all the 20 police stations in Navi Mumbai to shortlist the undetected cases of rape, molestation, harassment among others registered in the past five years, and to reinvestigate them.”

Patil said that apart from the officials from the respective police stations, the officials from the crime branch will also get involved in the process of reinvestigation of the old cases. That will ensure that the police stations can pay equal attention to the investigations of the fresh crimes.

“So far this year, our detection rate of rape cases is 100%. The number of undetected molestation cases this year and the number of the past four years’ other cases are also not very high. Therefore, with this initiative, we hope to detect almost all such unsolved crimes within a few months,” he said.

Another crime branch official added, “From this week, the patrolling at night has also been increased. More women officials have been included in the patrolling teams so that women don’t hesitate to approach the police whenever there is a need.”

Since 2017, Navi Mumbai police have registered 647 rape cases, out of which 625 are detected while 964 molestation cases were registered, 846 of which were detected.

The police have also sensitised the local authorities such as NMMC, CIDCO, PCMC and Uran Municipal Council and have asked them to install street lights and CCTV cameras in the deserted areas.