Lilongwe, May 30, Mana: Lingazi Police Station in Lilongwe has registered a 12.8 percent upturn in crime rate from January to May this year.

Presenting a report on the state of security in Lilongwe during Station Executive Committee (SEC) meeting on Monday at Ufulu Garden, Officer In-Charge, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Billy Chimbonga said the station has registered 588 criminal cases compared to 521 cases during the same period last year.

Among others, Chimbonga attributed the rise in thefts, burglary and break-ins during the period under review.

He said: “Lingazi Police Station is not doing well in reducing crime looking at how we have fared on theft, burglary and break-in. They are many factors to the rise, but the major one is that the station is under-resourced with only two functional vehicles.

“This means that we are not doing well in patrols. The reason is that Lingazi is still being treated as a sub-station when it was upgraded to a full-station.”

However, the OC said there was a 65.5 percent decline in traffic offences as the station had only 76 cases in the period under review against 116 the same period in 2022.

“Apart from that, we also had a decrease in rape and defilement because of the community court initiative,” added Chimbonga.

SEC chairperson, Matthews Mtumbuka said Areas 10, 43, 11 and 12 were highly targeted for thefts, break-ins and burglary following the presidential pardon of prisoners in the period under review.

“We had problems starting from the time prisoners were released on presidential pardon. Many targeted areas such as 10, 12, 11 and 43 where they know high profile figures live. Of course we are happy to hear most of these suspects were apprehended, but we feel there is more we cans do especially on effort coordination with community policing and neighborhood panels to always be active and act as informant,” Mtumbuka said.

Mana/hm/ccm/pk