Hyderabad, October 09: The Hyderabad police is seeking the help of the public to nab criminals who use attention diversion techniques to rob people.
Posters have been pasted at many places under the Punjagutta, Saifabad and Malakpet police stations with the title ‘Mosapokandi’ (Do not get cheated). The posters were created to create awareness among the people to be more vigilant. The poster also features photographs of 36 criminals, involved in attention diversion cases. Besides, the poster also has an interesting animation which depicts thieves robbing a person of his valuables by diverting his attention.
Though the campaign has not helped the police trace the offenders so far, the police are hopeful that citizens of Hyderabad can be helpful and request them to immediately call up the local police if they notice any one of the 36 accused. The campaign has been taken up in the backdrop of the numerous unsuccessful attempts by the police to nab the ones involved in the attention diversion cases that have been reported. Posters have been stuck around banks and other financial institutions, like ATM centres where the criminals concentrate.
According to the police, 1,500 posters have been pasted under Punjagutta and Saifabad police stations limits itself. Soon the campaign will be taken up under Malaket police station limits too since cases have been reported here too.
Punjagutta Inspector told Expresso that prior to the poster campaign, nearly 1,000 pamphlets were distributed under its station limits.
“The campaign activity has been taken up mainly in Punjagutta and Saifabad because business activity is high in these localities,” a police official said.
The sensational attention diversion cases have been reported near ICICI’s Khairatabad and Chaitanyapuri branches were people have lost lakhs of rupees. Officials say that these offences do not revolve around banks alone. “In places like Srinagar colony, laptops and other valuables too have stolen from cars when the attention of the car drivers was diverted under various pretexts. Valuables are lifted by another person, when the driver gets off the car to verify,” Malla Reddy added.
–Agencies–