Mumbai is still one of the safest cities in the country and the police are striving to keep up the status, Mumbai Police Commissioner Anami Narayan Roy said.
"The city is safe for women and for elderly people, for the poor as well as the rich and the police is in total control of the situation so that Mumbai can keep the tag of being one of the safest cities in the country," Roy told PTI in an exclusive interview.
The rise in crime rate was not an indicator of the safety of a city whose population is comparable to that of New York and Delhi, Roy, who is completing two years in office on Monday as the chief of one of the top police forces in the country, said.
"Let statistics not bother us. We are really proud that Mumbai is the safest and will remain so. We want to keep our city safest and we take pride in it," he said.
According to him, the real indicator (of city's safety) was the level of confidence people have in the police and the system.
"Even my daughter walks homes late in the night... I never worry about her... yesterday she came at 1 pm", Roy said.
He asked people to visit areas like the Marine Drive promenade or the Worli Sea Face, where couples, women and the old do not hesitate to stay late in the night.
According to him, with the economy witnessing a boom and the stock markets rising, there were risks of the underworld resurfacing in the city.
"But nothing has happened and this gives us confidence of maintaining peace in the city," he said.
Roy, who took over when the underworld activities were still on, said before he took over, there was a general fear among people about safety. "Things have changed since then, as we have succeeded to keep check on underworld activities," he said.
According to Roy, in the last two years there has been no major underworld activity, except some isolated incidents where gangsters fired at shops and establishments to instill fear.
As regards the rise in crime witnessed in the last two years, Roy said he was strongly opposed to suppression of registration of crime and had directed police stations to register all complaints received.
"In the last two years, we even have complaints of thefts of Rs 100, which were earlier not acknowledged," he said.
Roy said he believed in basic, fundamental policing, which according to him was the ultimate solution to all problems. "I do not believe in policing by sloganeering... I am not going to do 'sloganbaji, he said.
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