Bhubaneswar: The city has become a happy hunting ground for fraudsters who dupe thousands of gullible denizens of lakhs every year even as tardy pace of police investigation gives the criminals ample opportunity to target more individuals.
According to the available data through a Right to Information (RTI) plea, it came to the fore that probe into over 50 per cent of cases registered at various police stations in Capital city have been pending during the past decade – 2010 to 2020.
Data revealed that as many as 4,054 cases have been registered under Section 420 of the IPC (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) at various police stations in the city during the last 10 years. However, police succeeded in solving only 1,785 cases out of the total registered cases during the period.
As many as 2,269 cases were pending at the police stations in the city in which the victims are yet to get justice.
Khandagiri police failed to avail justice to the victims in 226 cheating cases out of the total 315 cases registered under Section 420 of IPC in the last 10 years.
Similarly, Mancheswar police failed to solve 148 cases out of the total 213 cheating cases reported during the above period. As many as 160 cases were pending out of 250-odd cheating cases reported at Nayapalli police station during the period.
Likewise, Chandrasekharpur police failed to solve 190 cases out of the total 300 cases registered during the last decade.
However, Sahid Nagar police managed to solve more than half of the cheating cases registered between 2010 and 2020. Out of the 557 cheating cases registered at the Sahid Nagar police station, investigations are pending in only 143 cases. The city failed to arrest many fraudsters in the cheating cases. It managed to arrest 1,599 accused persons while a large number of accused is still at large. Laxmisagar police managed to arrest 145 persons while around 300 are still absconding.
Speaking on the issue, DCP Umashankar Das said that cheating cases usually take more time to solve due to various complexities involved in the issues. There is a staff crunch which is affecting the probe process, the DCP added.
Gyan Ranjan Mohapatra, OP