Vandals and thieves target parked vehicles

Incidents of cars being vandalised and valuables being stolen from vehicles parked along the streets of Doha are occurring more frequently than ever.

Several parked vehicles have been found vandalised in Matar Qadeem recently. A number of cars have also been damaged by miscreants in the basement of a commercial-cum-residential complex in Umm Ghuwailina a few days ago.

On Wednesday, a wallet containing  utility and credit cards and cash was stolen from a car parked in front of a nursery school in Fereej Abdul Aziz. Its driver, a woman, had left the vehicle unlocked for no more than two minutes to pick her child from the nursery.

A wallet containing about QR12,000 was stolen from a 4X4 vehicle parked in front of a construction materials showroom in Mansoura a couple of months ago. The owner had  left the vehicle with all its doors locked but it was found that the windows were somehow lowered by those who committed the theft.

In another incident, many vehicles parked near a commercial complex at the C-Ring Road end of Bin Mahmoud were vandalised and belongings of the owners of some of the cars were stolen.

Most of these incidents had occurred in broad daylight.

One of the victims who went to the police to lodge a complaint was told that more than 50 such cases had been reported from different parts of the city in just a few days.

While the “indifference”  of car owners is  to be blamed for the thefts to some extent what is worrying is that these crimes are apparently being committed with ease and alarming frequency.

Community sources point out that the sight of youngsters’ groups wandering in some city areas late in the night are a common sight nowadays  unlike in the past. “As some of these youths are understood to be without any permanent work, the needle of suspicion often points at them,” according to the sources.

Such crimes have prompted some people to shift to gated residential communities. “I moved to a gated compound in Wukair after my car got vandalised by some miscreants in Najma where I used to live,” said an Indian expatriate, recalling how his vehicle was damaged while it was parked outside his flat.