City cops intensify drive to nab chain snatchers in city

Coimbatore: The city police on Sunday conducted a 24-hour combing operation to weed out drug peddlers, illegal lottery traders and various other violators.

Nearly 500 police personnels were deployed for the mission who conducted vehicle checks across the city. They were on high alert and conducted raids at lodges, besides closely monitoring suspects and ex-convicts.

Police officials said in the past one month several cases of chain snatching and house break-in were reported in the city. "Generally, every Saturday police officials conduct extensive checks and patrolling across the city. But since we found that more such cases were reported on Sundays, we decided to do it on Sunday," said deputy commissioner, law and order, S Lakshmi.

She added that in the past 15 days, the police department had on a daily basis deployed additional 50 personnels from armed reserve department and home guards department to increase police visibility in the city.

"On Sunday, the law and order police officials conducted the operation and the crime police officials took over in the evening. This is to reduce the number of chain snatching cases," she said.

Another police officer said that most of the vehicles that did not have valid papers were detained, the drunk drivers were arrested and high speeding vehicles were checked and their numbers noted down.

"Most chain snatchers were between the age group of 18 and 30 years. So we are keeping a close watch on youngsters and the high speeding bikes that are often used to commit such crimes," said an official.

The city police will continue such drives every weekend to ensure that such cases are reduced in the city. They have set up special teams as well to crack cases and ensure that pending cases are solved.