Chief Superintendent Martin Ayiih, the Adenta Divisional Commander, has said car snatching is on the increase and entreated the public to avoid using unregistered vehicles and motorbikes at night.

He said the night police patrols may detain such vehicles till the next morning and urged the public to memorise the Police emergency numbers - 191 or shortcode 1855 for users of MTN and Vodafone.

Chief Superintendent Ayiih, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said there was an upsurge of robberies in the district which often occurs between 2200hrs to 0200hrs, and there was the need for people to form ‘whatsapp’ groups for neighbourhood security purposes so that others could be alerted should an incident occur.

He said children should also be taught to memorise the police emergency numbers so that if parents were not at home, they could call the police in times of distress.

Chief Superintendent Ayiih said there was the need for all private security personnel to be registered with the police for security training, saying that is key to thwarting all robbery efforts.

He said the robbers or burglars, who sometimes wore masks and carry deadly weapons preferred stealing iphones and other electronic gadgets including flatscreen televisions.

Chief Superintendent Ayiih said there was also the need for the public to make indelible marks on some of their valuable items so that they could easily be identified should the suspects be arrested.

He said another method used by some burglars was with the use of a sticky substance (such as glue ) on a pad attached to a stick, citing examples, Chief Supt Ayiih said a lady woke up to realise that her hand bag, with its valuables, had been emptied.

He said, quite unfortunately, in all the many cases of the robberies reported, no distress calls were made during the incident and that reports were made after incident had occurred, stressing the need to memorise the Police emergency numbers.