Hyderabad: The two prisons in the city are spawning new crime gangs as several convicts and undertrial prisoners form teams inside and plan future crimes that can be carried out when they are released.
Last year, the police arrested around 3,000 repeat offenders. The cops found that most of them were tempted to commit crimes after meeting ‘new partners’ in jail. In city, property offenders, chain snatchers and rowdy sheeters have set up new gangs from prison.
Criminals who are imprisoned for petty crimes often come out after joining gangs and commit major offences. Many new chain- snatching and robbery gangs were set up inside prison.
Earlier, East Zone police had busted a gang of chain-snatchers by arresting three people and recovered gold chains worth Rs 5 lakh from them. The suspects, Inder Sindhi, 46, Shravan kumar Kumawat, 29, and Lakhan Singh Meena, 26, who were in jail for petty offences, met in prison and decided to target lone women on the roads.
They lived in a rented flat in Cherlapally and used to commit chain-snatching in the city. They also had bought second hand bikes from Ramkoti to commit offences.
Experts say that lack of proper rehabilitation of prisoners compel them to choose the wrong way even after coming out from jail. “Most criminals are anxious about their future outside jail. When they meet others and have a lot of free time inside prison they end up planning crimes,” said a senior police officer from Cyberabad.
Cyberabad police started a rehabilitation programme for criminals by helping them start small businesses. But no other commissionerate have taken similar initiatives.
