TimesView The need for police to act swiftly and effectively is becoming evident with each harrowing crime reported in the city. Much can be achieved in terms of curbing crime by following the basics of regular patrolling, identifying crime-prone areas and timely prosecution. However, not only has the Jaipur police failed to stick to the basics, it has also failed to act effectively. Their visit to the residential colony after receiving an alert on an attempted break-in, seemed more from compulsion, bound by their duty, rather than to prevent any untoward incident. Instead of patrolling the colony or searching abandoned houses in the neighbourhood, the police team chose to leave after recording the statements of complainants, giving space to the gang of robbers to strike again, this time, fatally. This amounts to negligence on part of the team. It is high time, the police act to prevent avoidable crime and not be content by routine reaction. JAIPUR: The three armed robbers were on a hunting spree to loot as many houses as they could before the sunrise on Saturday. At least three hours before they cut through the window grills and killed an elderly woman, the robbers had tried their luck at two other houses of influential families in the same locality of Mansarovar.Sources told TOI, the gang might have surveyed about six houses in the same locality. They finally selected three houses from where they hoped to decamp with bags brimming with cash. But they were forced to make hasty retreats from two of their chosen targets, as they found the window grills and the doors there, too strong to break with their ‘nakab’ (a traditional object used by the gang to break locks). The CCTV at one of the houses, marred their plans too.Even as the police was hunting for the suspects in the locality, the suspects waited in hiding, plotting their next target. The trio had ambled alongside New Sanganer road, occasionally hiding behind bushes to avoid suspicion from vehicles passing through the road. “It is clear that they were unfazed by our presence in the locality and are professional, hardcore robbers. No recce was carried out by them as they randomly chose houses as their targets,” a senior officer, who is part of the investigation said.At 1.15 am, the gang of three robbers sneaked into an abandoned house, adjacent to a palatial house of one Heera Lal Indora. Indrora’s house number 20/100 in Mansarovar is barely 100 metres away from the ill-fated house where they killed the additional SP’s (ASP’s) motherin-law.Rajesh Indora, the resident of the house, talking to TOI, said, “Three robbers had jumped into our house by scaling the wall of the neighbouring abandoned house. As the doors and windows were locked, they could not open the window grills, though they looked through the windows and fled,” he said. Indora was shocked when the police visited him and checked CCTV footages installed at the front yard. “I am thankful to god that they left my house and it is disheartening to know they have murdered an elderly woman,” he added.After their loot bid at the first house fizzled out, the robbers again took a brief refuge at the nearby abandoned house where the thick bushes provided them with ample cover to hide. From here, they rushed to another house of a retired IPS official. “They jumped from the backyard into our house. After noticing some activity, we screamed from inside. That’s when the robbers must have changed their mind and left our house. Frankly, we could only scream but had no courage to confront them,” said Vijay Meena. However, Meena alerted the police control room. “We saw them at about 1.55 am or 2 am. There were three suspects, wearing shorts, vests and were masked,” he said.

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