HYDERABAD: The overall crime rate in Telangana went up by 8.97 per cent in 2023, the spike mostly caused by a 17.59 percent rise in cybercrime cases.
DGP Ravi Gupta said here on Friday that 41,511 cases were brought forward from the previous years while 1,38,312 cases were reported during the year (till November), leaving the police with 1,79,823 pending cases. Of these, 1,24,213 cases (69.07 per cent) have been disposed out, he said.
Loss of property to theft was to the tune of '151.78 crore. In a significant development, 53.82 per cent of the loot was recovered, much better than the 50 per cent recovery rate in 2022, Gupta said.
There has been a decline in fatal road accidents from 6,432 cases in 2022 to 6,362 cases this year, he said.
With regard to convictions, Gupta said: “While the overall conviction rate was 41 per cent in 2023, life convictions increased by 39 per cent, from 168 in 2022 to 232 cases in 2023.”
Gupta pointed out that the state-wide average response time of patrol cars was seven minutes. CCTV cameras had been instrumental in early detection of crimes, which several other technological interventions helped in speeding up investigations and processing cases in courts.
In addition, Telangana topped in recovery of lost or stolen mobiles with a 33.80 per cent success rate, thanks to the CEIR portal, which has been developed by Union department of telecommunications. He said 15,004 mobiles were traced since the launch in May.
Responding to a query, DGP Gupta said that the new convoy of land cruisers was procured for the then chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, for security reasons. The police would look into any violations in the procurement or the fact that the vehicles were hidden somewhere.
