Islamabad-In first 15 days of December, Islamabad police registered as many as 10 cases of vehicle theft, suggesting that the law enforcement officials have failed to curb the crime. Incidents of car theft continue to happen the way the predecessors of the new Inspector General of Police had witnessed before.

Around ten people lost their cars and bikes to the thieves, twelve houses were robbed and five people were mugged in the streets besides many other crimes in the city during the period.

All these crimes were preventable and took place despite presence of so many police check posts, patrolling and tall claims by the police to bring the crime rate down to an ignorable level.

The Aabpara Police Station limits were host of most of the crimes in all the three categories during the month, suggests analysis of crime data for December.

According to the police sources, barely a quarter of the police strength, around 3,000, are actively fighting the crimes while the rest are performing other duties.

Interestingly, the number of police deputed for public protection is less than the number reserved for VIPs’ security as the security division has over 3,500 personnel at its disposal. A smaller number is out there chasing criminals while the rest are performing administrative and clerical duties at police stations or standing at around four dozen checkpoints in the city.

It seemed that protection of VIPs in Islamabad is the only purpose the police while protection of life and property of common man is the second priority.

The statistics show that majority of the vehicles and bikes were lifted from the area of police stations as Aabpara, Sihala, Nilore, Sabzi Mandi, Noon, Karachi Company, Shalimar, Secretariat and Industrial Area. Burglars seem to have been given a free hand in the area of police stations Aabpara and Sabzi Mandi while street crime were found to have frequently happened in the limits of Aabpara, Golra, Sabzi Mandi and Industrial-Area police stations.

Meanwhile, Islamabad Police Operation Division team on Sunday clinched trophy of inter-divisional cricket tournament by beating logistics division in a sensational 20-over match held at Murghzar ground in Saidpur. The winning team achieved the target of 178 runs, set by the runner up, on second last ball of the final over.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Waqar Ahmed Chohan said on the occasion that the tournament was organised on special directives of Inspector General of Islamabad Police Sultan Azam Temuri to promote healthy activities in the police force.

He highlighted the importance of promoting sports activities among the police personnel as it was a great source of character and morale building.

He said that the policemen get exhausted due to long duties and such events would help entertain them and provide them opportunity to demonstrate their sports skills, adding that this event would make policemen to keep themselves physically and mentally fit.