Bhubaneswar, Aug. 9: Police have intensified patrolling in the city following a sudden spurt in crimes such as snatching, theft, burglary and robbery in past three months.

Director general of police Prakash Mishra, who chaired a meeting at his camp office at the police commissionerate here on Wednesday, was concerned over the growing number of snatching, robbery and other crimes in the city and stressed on intensifying patrolling and checking.

In the past few months, incidents such as snatching and a new way of stealing money by using Rs 10 notes as bait has gone up in the city. People have been blaming the police about not doing enough to check crime in the city.

On July 7, former IAS officer Rabi Ranjan Mallick’s house was burgled with goons fleeing with ornaments worth Rs 2 lakh.

Though this incident occurred on the city outskirts, burglars have also targeted houses located in the central parts of the city. In July, a former state government employee was robbed in the Unit-VI area.

Last week, some juveniles burgled a professor’s house in OUAT Colony.

“Burglary has become a regular phenomenon in our area,” said Prabhubrata Sahu, a resident of Tamando area located on the city outskirts.

Chain-snatching cases have virtually become the order of the day with goons targeting women. Two days ago, a high school teacher was injured when two goons snatched away her gold chain and she fell from the motorcycle she was travelling on.

“Whenever I step out of my house, I prefer not to wear any ornaments for fear of not only losing it but also getting injured. The situation is pretty terrifying,” said Ananya Mohanty, a homemaker residing in the Unit-I area, where such cases are now happening quite frequently.

Burglars have lately adopted an innovative way of stealing money from people by throwing some Rs 10 currency notes on the ground and taking advantage of unmindful people carrying large amount of cash. In past two months, more than six such incidents had been reported in the Kharavela Nagar area alone.

“This new way of stealing money scares people like me. We can neither wear gold chains nor carry cash,” said Manish Gupta, a businessman.

The crime figures of the city police also reveal a significant rise in petty crimes.

In the last three months, 35 cases of robbery have been registered in Bhubaneswar as compared to 12 cases in the first four months. A total of 375 theft cases have been reported in the city in May, June and July while 335 cases had been registered in first four months of the current calendar year.

The police have registered 85 cases of burglary in first four months and 64 in the next three months of this year. Seventy-nine swindling cases have been reported in the city this year with 24 in just July.

However police officials said that patrolling was being done as usual. “We have lately intensified night checking at important junctions and will continue with it. Besides, area-specific patrolling by police control vans will be intensified,” said a senior police officer.