Though police boast of having solved the Balawala armed burglary and murder case with the arrest of three out of the six accused what came to light during interrogation and investigation was not palatable for them. It is clear that the accused could have been arrested by the Uttarakhand police the very day the crime was committed had the law enforcers showed a bit more pro-active approach.
In another armed burglary incident reported from Sahaspur recently, the criminals burgled a house and fled the scene despite information being disseminated among the policemen deployed at police posts about criminals escaping in a stolen white-coloured jeep. This again exposed chinks in the much-vaunted police armour.
Soon after the incident of murder and burglary was reported from Nakraunda in Balawala, State Additional Director General Police (law and order) RS Meena, DIG Amit Sinha, Dehradun SSP Ajay Rautela and some other police officers inspected the site.
Police, however, launched combing operation a day after the incident had occurred and that too after the local residents had blocked the highway demanding the accused be arrested. With police facing flak from the people- the Chief Minister Harish Rawat made things more difficult for them after he had issued a deadline for State and district police to crack the case promptly-several teams were formed and were deployed at many places, including Western Uttar Pradesh. This aside, they launched verification drives involving the residents and intensified patrolling to nab the accused.
However, if one of the arrested accused were to be believed, they had reached the crime site in an auto- rickshaw on September 9 evening and hid themselves in the bushes for about five hours. Moreover, after committing the crime on September 10 early morning, they had moved towards the forest area and around 11 am, they had boarded a city bus at Bhaniyalwala and escaped unnoticed from Dehradun.
Moreover, the accused said some locals had seen them escaping. But interestingly, the locals had neither informed police promptly nor helped them to prepare sketches of the accused. As per the accused, they had chosen the particular house they had burgled because of its location on the outskirts and easy road connectivity for them to escape.
Had police patrolling in the area been as required it would have been difficult for the criminals to remain hidden in the bushes for so many hours. Besides, the question that begs an answer is -why they had not gone for combing operations soon after the crime was committedIJ Why did not police check the city buses at the check posts despite knowing that one of the criminals was injuredIJ Why did not the bus conductor or the driver inform police about the suspected aboard the vehicleIJ
The pattern of the houses located on the outskirts being made the soft targets of burglary was followed again in the Sahaspur case. The miscreants burgled the house of a farmer located on the outskirt.
In the past too, several such cases happened in the outskirt areas like Sahaspur, Raipur and Vikasnagar in the district. The question is-why do not police conduct patrolling in these vulnerable areas regularlyIJ After the FIR was lodged in the police station as regards the Sahaspur case information was disseminated among the policemen deployed at police posts about criminals escaping in a stolen white coloured jeep.
