GHAZIABAD: Police in have decided to take legal action against house owners if their tenants are found to be staying without verification. The cops have initiated a door-to-door drive, under which they will distribute forms among house owners to fill details of their tenants.
The move follows the arrest of several criminals who were staying on rent without verification. Cosp also found out that many criminals were expelled from their districts like Noida, Bulandshahr and Meerut and have been residing in Ghaziabad without proper verification.
House owners will be charged under Section 188 (disobedience of an order promulgated by public servant) of IPC if their tenants are found to be living without following the procedure.
Police said a lot of people also reside in rented accommodations in Ghaziabad since the district offers affordable houses compared to other NCR places.
As a part of the drive, police officers from the district will distribute forms to individual house owners who will in turn fill and submit the forms at the nearest police station.
Officials from the police station will then make calls to the station in the tenants’ hometown and get the criminal history verified.
Till December 17 this year, 6,802 applications were given for verification in Ghaziabad, out of which 3,099 were verified. These applications were submitted through the UP Cop application.
In November alone, 339 applications were submitted, 241 out of which have been approved. Applications via the UP Cop take three days for verification.
A senior police officer said that around 10 lakh people stay in Loni and about 30% house owners have got their tenants’ verification done. “Most of the criminals are arrested from Loni, Khora and other areas of Ghaziabad,” the officer said.
“The tenant data will help us to curb crimes. If we talk about street crimes, hundreds of people were arrested in the past month and most of them were staying on rent without any police verification,” he added.
Ajay Kumar Mishra, commissioner of police told TOI that he is planning to start this drive within a week and his team is working out a strategy on it. “We will also take help from RWA and society’s association,” he said.