Police chief hails Indian expats, cautions on bouncing cheques

DUBAI: Indian expatriates living in Dubai have won praise from Chief of Dubai Police Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim for being law-abiding citizens. However, he cautioned the community members to settle their debts amicably as cases of bounced cheques have gone up in recent times.

Addressing members of the Indian Business and Professional Council, Dubai, on Wednesday, he said that Dubai and India share historic relationship and it has remained friendly despite arrival of expatriates from various other countries.

Talking in terms of number of offences committed by Indians, he said that the numbers were meagre compared to the huge number of people from the country. He mentioned that the number of cases has been going down constantly.

The number of serious crimes allegedly committed by Indians in 2009 was 256, which went down to 204 in 2010, 195 in 2011 and only 98 cases have been filed so far this year. While the total number of criminal offences filed against Indians this year is about 11,700, the number of such offences reached 24,000 last year.

“I am glad to see Indians not making serious offences. Indians respect law and abide by the law,” he said.

However, he pointed out that due to economic downturn the number of cases against Indians involving dud cheques had gone up. While the cases related to bounced cheques were only 7,545 in 2009, it increased to 23,825 in 2010. In 2011, 20,983 cases were registered and more than 10,200 cases have already been registered this year.

Pointing out that bouncing a cheque is a crime in the UAE, Tamim suggested community members to stay back in the market and face the situation, because running away from the market will not help. He said that being labelled as fugitive will tarnish the reputation of the person and his family too. And the chances of making a request to the Interpol will always be there.

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