'Revenge mugging' the new buzzword in Bengaluru crime circuit

As a deterrence strategy, police are booking habitual offenders under the stringent Goonda Act or banishing them from the city

Police efforts to prevent crimes in public places aren’t deterring muggers who seem to be on a spree after the lockdown.

As per the city police’s own records, Bengaluru has been reporting at least five incidents of mugging every day. And these muggings are happening in spite of the police’s much-publicised raids on 2,144 rowdies (people with criminal records) at their homes and in the Central Prison at Parappana Agrahara on July 10. Nothing seems to be frightening the criminals.

Take two recent cases, for example.

On July 18, around 7.15 pm, Karthik Behara, 30, an Odisha native, was robbed of his mobile phone by a gang of three. A technician at a petroleum company in the KIADB industrial area in Bagalur, Behara had barely walked 300 metres from his workplace when the bike-borne muggers waylaid him and asked him to part with his valuables.

“I started running away but two of them chased me down. I couldn’t run fast because I was wearing safety shoes. I lost balance and fell down. They hit me and snatched my phone. They were gone in a flash,” Behara recounted to DH.

Behara added that he was scared of the muggers and initially decided against going to the police. He later changed his mind and filed a complaint with Bagalur police two days later.

The second case involves Syed Zahiruddin, 20, who says he was mugged while on his way to the mosque for prayers on the eve of Bakrid. The incident happened around 5 am in Veerannapalya.

Zahiruddin says two men on a scooter threatened him at knifepoint and tried to snatch his phone. He shouted at them and raised an alarm, scaring the muggers away. He has filed a complaint with Amruthahalli police.

Alongside muggings, cases of chain-snatching, housebreak and rowdy murders are also on the rise.

To ensure that cops don’t lower their guard, Bengaluru police chief Kamal Pant and other senior officers have been paying surprise visits to police stations to track the status of investigations.

A senior police officer who doesn’t want to be named said habitual offenders had lied low during the Covid-19 lockdown because police patrolled the streets round the clock. Consequently, there were few muggings or chain-snatchings. But criminals started popping up as soon as the government lifted the restrictions in late June, the officer conceded.

Some of the crimes are being committed by people who do not have criminal records, said another senior officer. “Financial problems created by the lockdown are driving some people to crime,” the officer added.

Police are now trying to keep one step ahead of them. “We are trying to detect the cases swiftly and track down the culprits,” said the first officer. “We don’t want to give them any leeway.”

As a deterrence strategy, police are booking habitual offenders under the stringent Goonda Act (which provides for one-year imprisonment without bail) or banishing them from the city. In some cases, habitual offenders are being asked to furnish bonds of good behaviour, the officer said.