However, senior police officers deny laxity on part of the police.

On Saturday night, a PCR police team had nabbed a thief from near Nav Durga temple in Sarabha Nagar.

The PCR man informed the concerned police station but the police party arrived after an hour to arrest the thief .

Before this, a PCR team had first nabbed a thief near the Sidhwan Canal. On his statement, the cops came to know about his accomplice who was near the Nav Durga temple.

Though the PCR team informed the concerned police station about the thief around 9.30 pm, a police party arrived to take him in theircustody around 11 pm. To add to it, the police reached only after mediapersons brought the matter to the notice of senior police officers.

Sarabha Nagar DSP Bhupinder Singh reportedly tried to cover up the case by saying that the police had noted down the name and address of the thief so he could have been arrested in case he would have fled. Besides, the DSP had said that the thief was disabled and was under the influence of liquor, so he could not have fled.

Earlier on February 22, when a man was seriously injured by a bus near the traffic lights of the Bhai Wala Chowk, there too the police had arrived late.

Even no ambulance came to take the injured man to hospital for about half-an-hour. He was rushed to the Civil Hospital in an autorickshaw.

SSP (Urban) RK Jaiswal said, "Ludhiana being a big city, many incidents keep happening at the same time so at times police do get late.

But our PCR teams immediately reach at the scenes of crime.

It is that the additional police force sometimes cannot reach, as they are busy elsewhere. We are revamping the beats of the PCR teams shortly and some other changes are to be made so that the police parties immediately reach the scene of crime."