Ahmedabad:
Believe it or not, there exists a clear cut division in the city when it comes to crime. The eastern part of the city, besides being left far behind in terms of economic and infrastructural development, remains fraught with criminal activities as compared to the western part.
According to data available for the last six years with the city police, the eastern part, which falls under jurisdiction of sector-2 police, tops the chart of physical offences like gruesome murders, rapes, assaults and molestations in the city (see box). Sociologists say that apart from history of violence, lose socio-economic fabric of this part of the city is responsible for the scenario. They believe that the absence of modern institutes and state of 'lawlessness' are to be blamed for this situation. This is why people living in this part of the city are getting hurt more than their counterparts living in western edges, they say.
"There are lots of reasons behind eastern part of the city witnessing most of the bodily offences," says Gaurang Jani, a sociologist. There is a long history of violence in that part of the city and it gets repeated all the time due to absence of modern law institutions as lack of faith in such organizations in the area, he says, adding, "Besides, a huge number of migrants live in those areas and they don't have any support system. So, people tend to take laws in their hand."
Police and even residents have passively acknowledged the fact that their part of the city has always been comparatively violent and the history is repeated every year.
Atul Karwal, joint police commissioner, sector-2, was not available for comments. However, the silver lining is that that the number of such crimes has shown a downwards trend since 2005. This phenomenon has also been witnessed in sector-1 during last three years.
When it comes to overall number of physical offences registered across the city, the pattern comes as a respite to citizens as well as police. During last six years, the highest number of such offences was registered 1775 in 2007. On the positive side, the lowest figure of 1476 cases was recorded last year.
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