The number of motor vehicle theft went up from 1096 to 1392. While reviewing the performance of police in the district, Satyendra Garg, Deputy Commissioner of Police (northwest), said that the district no longer enjoyed the status of being the crime district of Delhi as the district saw a reduction in heinous crimes such as murder, robbery, kidnapping for ransom and dacoity this year: 437 cases of heinous crimes were registered as against 450 cases last year. ``One of the reasons for this decline could be that we have maximum number of externs in the whole of Delhi. As many as 75 criminals were externed and 182 criminals have been bound with proceedings.''

He put down the arrest of certain criminals under the National Security Act as the other reason for decline in such cases, besides the arrest of a number of noted criminals who also feature in the police dossiers. Attributing to the success and utility of the National Security Act (NSA), he observed that there have been cases where many of these criminals preferred to stay behind the bars despite the bail option to avoid re-arrest under NSA. The detention under the Act was non-bailable, he explained, and the detention period could be anything more than two years.

Garg observed that there had been a considerable decline in the cases of crime against women this year in the district. As against the 103 cases of rape in 1997, 68 rape cases were reported in the district this year. Of this, the police claim to have worked out 58 cases. Besides this, there were 104 cases of molestation, of which the police has worked out 97 cases. 118 cases of eve-teasing were recorded as against 185 last year, and police claims to have solved 117 of these cases. Amongst its notable achievements for this year, the district boasted of making the biggest seizure of narcotics in this year. Seventeen kg of high quality heroin worth more than Rs 20 crore in the international market was recovered by the operation cell of the district. Garg claimed that out of the total seizure of 27.731 kg heroin in Delhi, 19.257 kg heroin was recovered by the northwest district police. He also claimed that the district had made the biggest-ever seizure of pirated cassettes worth Rs 1.5 crore in one operation inthe whole country.