The city’s crime map witnessed some twists in 2019, with a decline in the number of criminal cases and a spurt in those involving narcotics.

Apart from cybercrime cases, the year also saw several theft/robbery and cheating cases. However, compared to previous years, police have been successful in keeping the crime rate under check.

As per the data obtained by DH from the Bengaluru City Police, there were only 525 robbery/dacoity cases in 2019, compared to 754 in 2018 and 722 in 2017. City police commissioner Bhaskar Rao said several mugging and robbery cases were reported along the Outer Ring Road, especially in the IT corridors where techies turn easy targets. But the cases have come down after the introduction of Hoysala vehicles in such points and night rounds by jurisdictional police.

Cheating cases also came down to 2,397 in 2019 from 2,991 in 2018 and 3,201 in 2017.

A total of 10,965 theft cases were reported in 2017, which came down to 9,569 in 2018, and further to 7,474 in 2019. Bike thefts and house burglaries constituted a majority of theft cases. Rao said even such cases could be curbed if the owners took adequate precautionary measures.

Also, accidents claimed more lives in Bengaluru (697) than cases of murder (192).

Narcotic cases

Despite a special drive to curb the narcotics menace, the city police booked 720 cases in 2019 compared to 286 in 2018 and 354 in 2017.

A senior police officer said that in almost all NDPS cases, police have registered an FIR after arresting the drug peddler or the dealer.

“We are on a special drive to check the narcotics racket in the city. There have been arrests every week and we even book people smoking marijuana,” he said.

Except for cybercrime police station complaints (10,000), the number crossed 28,000 this year at all the 107 law and order police stations in the city. Banaswadi station topped the list with 700 FIRs being registered, followed by 622 in KR Puram.

The Shankarapuram police registered the least number of cases with 30 FIRs.