Would've shot culprits in crime against women if Constitution

Virtually reflecting helplessness to ensure stricter punishment to perpetrators of heinous crimes against women, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi today said the force would not be hesitant to shoot or hang such criminals if the Constitution had permitted it.
Speaking on a range of issues at Delhi Police's annual press conference, Bassi who is set to retire next month, also said it was good fortune of Delhiites that the force was under the Centre and not the city government.
Rolling out statistics relating to crime and criminals, Bassi said registration of cases went up by around 24 per cent in 2015 compared to 2014 and that police was doing everything possible to ensure safety and security of the people with particular focus on women and children.

"It will be our pleasure to shoot or hang (the) perpetrators of crime against women if the Constitution of India permits us," said Bassi, who is at helm of Delhi Police since July 2013.
He said, "crime-mapping analysis" of the city suggested that any woman in a locality is surrounded by anything between 250-400 men who would not think twice before assaulting her... They have no respect even for their own mothers and sisters and look at women like they do in a porn movie. They see (even) a two-month-old baby or an 80-year-old woman as targets."
The top cop, who has been having a frosty relationship with the AAP government, said "The people of Delhi are 100 per cent fortunate that the Delhi Police is not under pressure. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Minister take interest in Delhi. Only the Delhi Chief Minister does so."

Bassi also announced that 1,000 traffic police personnel will be given guns in view of rising instances of attacks on traffic wing of the force. Currently, traffic policemen are not armed.

Giving statistics, Bassi said as many as 1,82,644 cases under the Indian Penal Code were reported in 2015 as compared to 1,47,237 in the previous year. While cases of murder dropped by 3.91 per cent, rapes and molestation cases increased by 0.48 and 24.15 per cent respectively.
While the highest increase was witnessed in cases of motor vehicle thefts, reported around 40 per cent increase, 16.45 per cent rise was witnessed in robbery and 35.71 in snatching.

"Along with truthful registration comes the onus of prevention and detection of crime and Delhi Police has given an excellent account in this regard. A total of 49,903 IPC cases, including 6,328 heinous cases, have been solved compared to 43,431 cases, including 5,784 heinous cases, in the previous year," the commissioner said.