The Young and Fast

-Aishwaryaa. R

Vehicle theft by juveniles is becoming a big threat to Chennai’s traffic police.

The Detroit of India, Chennai, records more than 25 cases of vehicle theft each day. Many of these thefts are done by young boys, mostly in groups.

“We see a dirty scooty lying unsupervised in a narrow underlit street, we take it. We turn it on with dummy keys or even a metal wire, and take it to the scrap shops to be dismantled. We sell these parts to a local dealer for money,” says a 15-year old boy from Pudupettai. He works part-time at a mechanic repair shop there.

The teenager has been working in the mechanic shop since he was 7 years old. He has repeated his 9^th standard twice and finds no interest in studying. His parents are daily wage workers at a construction site. He has an elder brother who also works as a mason. Even with all of their salaries put together, they can barely make ends meet.

“I don’t have any interest in studies. I find it very difficult to catch up, especially English. I’m good with calculation. So I think I’ll drop out and work at the shed full-time to learn mechanical work. It’s far more interesting than regular school for me,” he said.

Tearing them down, part by part. | Photo Credit : Lakshmanan Subramani

Apart from economic pressure, it is also peer pressure that drives these boys into thieving.

“I was never into it. But my friend took me out once and got me involved in one such situation. I couldn’t escape as the police was nearby and if I run I would be caught. He [his friend] takes me along with him most of the time now. The money helps me get my own stuff, so I continued to do it,” said another 15-year old from Kasimedu.

This boy hails from a family of fishermen. He comes to Pudupettai since he finds this has a better future than fishing. His parents are unaware of the dangers that he faces in the field.

“They are fine with me working here since it pays more and they think it is safer than going into the sea. I can’t tell them about what happens here. If I do, they will definitely be very angry with me and won’t allow me to work anymore,” he said.

He uses the money to buy food from better eateries in the area, for himself and his family.

“I sometimes crave for a barotta or biriyani. My parents can’t afford to get it often. So I get it whenever I feel it with this money. Sometimes I get fancy items like watches or sunglasses. I hide it in my closet at home so my parents don’t question me as to where I get the money.”

In order to escape from the police, number plates and stickers on the bikes are immediately changed before taking it into the main roads. They take to a nearby alley, change and clean the vehicle as fast as they can, and sneak it away by wearing helmets.

“Once, my friend stole a [Yamaha] R15 from Saidapet. He changed the number plate and added a sticker in the front and rode it in the very same street where he stole it from. Nobody got a clue that it was stolen. The commonly used bikes are the easiest to steal around the city,” said the boy from Pudupettai.

Children are also hired by local dealers as they are quicker and easily fooled into such business.

The police said that a few are caught when they see them speeding in triples on the roads, but the nimble adolescents find ways to escape from the police.

“We have caught many of these boys while stopping them for not wearing helmets. They don’t have any license or even ID proof, which arouses the main suspicion. Even if they do wear helmets, some of them drive unusually fast on main roads. All these are ways to see if the boy has stolen the vehicle or not. Public need to be aware of such activities and make sure that their vehicle is parked in a safe space,” said a traffic policeman in Pudupettai.

CHENNAI COLLEGE STUDENTS ON A HIGH

CHHAVIANSHIKA SINGH

CHENNAI: Kotturpuram, which has as many as 22 educational institutions, has an ongoing drug problem, mostly because of its large student population, says Police Constable Vizhivittan, stationed at the police station in Kotturpuram.

However, Assistant Commissioner D A Raveendran at the Adyar Police Station says that drugs are not that much of an issue in their circle since more schools are located in the zone, and only one or two colleges.

“When we catch a student in possession of drugs, we usually don’t register a case against them, as it will ruin their life. Instead, we use the student to track down and nab their dealer”, says PC Vizhivittan.

On December 10, the police caught five students, all boys enrolled in a college in Adyar, in possession of drugs. They were all from well-connected families with friends in high places. “Even if we had arrested them they would’ve been out with one phone call”.

Later, their dealer, an “innocent-school-kid-type guy”, was caught at the D5 circle, around the Triplicane-Chepauk area.

PC Vizhivittan, who has been working at the Kotturpuram Police Station since the past three years, explains that the police have different procedures in place to deal with first-time and repeat offenders.

In case of a first-time offender, the police take the student into custody early, around 8 a.m. and leave them at the police station the whole day. “That is enough to dissuade them from repeating their offence”.

However, for addicts and repeat offenders, they take a sterner approach, their parents are called, and made to sign a written document stating that if their ward is caught again for the same offence, a case will be registered against them, and they shall be put behind bars.

EOM

CRIME DAIRIES: PHONE SNATCHING TO SUICIDE

DEEKSHA SHYAM SUNDAR

CHENNAI: While Adyar, one of the city’s more posh localities, mostly witnesses mobile phone and chain snatching incidents, Kotturpuram, with 22 educational institutions under its ambit, has witnessed a spike in suicides among college students, say local police officials.

Assistant Commissioner D A Raveendran, at the Adyar Police Station, says that people in this locality, where real estate prices are anything between 7,400 – 20,600 per square feet, tend to have expensive phones, which they’re careless about. Hence, it is easy to snatch them even in broad daylight. He adds that incidents of chain-snatching are also commonly reported.

Quite recently, the Adyar police arrested a man named Ajith Kumar in connection with five incidents of phone-snatching in just three days. Upon investigation, as many as 15 phones were recovered from him, says ACP Raveendran.

However, in Kotturpuram Police Station, under the jurisdiction of which there are seven colleges/universities, including the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Anna University, reports of student suicides have risen, says Police Constable Vazhivittan.

In fact, he says that two suicide cases were reported in IIT Madras this month alone, one of which was just past Monday.

He blames the negative effects of film-viewing for the increase of petty crimes and disturbances by youngsters, particularly final year college students and some uneducated people of similar ages around Kotturpuram.

“Movies show that if you beat people up on the streets, if you’re rowdy, or if you beat up a policeman, you’re a hero.”

To combat this problem, the police hold seminars and awareness programmes in schools and colleges. Especially children in the NSS (National Service Scheme) and NCC (National Cadet Corps) are involved in a programme where they interact with traffic policemen and help in managing traffic for a day. “This teaches them to be law-abiding citizens since they see the amount of work that goes into law enforcement.”