For a long time, Pune has carried the reputation of being a ‘safe’ city; more silent than India’s metros, culturally rooted, and relatively insulated from violent crime. Conversations with residents across neighbourhoods, however, suggest that this sense of safety is increasingly becoming fragile. While the city may still fare better than many others, evolving crime patterns, uneven policing, and everyday incivilities are reshaping how citizens experience safety in public spaces.
Advocate Asim Sarode, a criminal and constitutional lawyer from Pune, practising at the Supreme Court and Bombay High Court, situates this shift in a longer historical context. In the late 1990s, Pune had around 28 active criminal gangs, largely engaged in petty crime. Over time, several gang leaders and associates entered politics, using power and patronage to legitimise themselves. “Now these gundas are no longer gundas but politicians,” Sarode notes.
The consequences, he argues, are visible in today’s crime landscape: offences are no longer confined to street-level violence but extend to cyber fraud, digital extortion, juvenile drug trafficking, and large-scale economic crimes linked to land and urban expansion. Rapid urbanisation has intensified land disputes, coercion, and unlawful conversions, particularly as land values soar.
Yet, Sarode points to a deeper institutional failure. According to him, police responses often bypass due process and legal obligations, breeding mistrust. Decades of “sheltered corruption and hunger for power,” he warns, have normalised violence and communal tensions to the point where sections of society have become desensitised to them. “The system is decaying from the inside, and that decay is beginning to shape public attitudes,” he says.
On the ground, residents articulate persistent unease. A 50-year-old member of the Deccan Gymkhana Parisar Samiti, who has lived in the area since childhood, still considers Pune safer than many cities. Yet daily risks loom large. Rampant disobedience towards traffic laws, especially at night, has become a major concern given the non-functional signals, drunken driving, speeding, and road rage. Public intoxication, he adds, often spills into harassment and littering in residential spaces. While community groups regularly alert authorities, responses are slow. Still, he insists this is “not a lost cause” and places faith in better awareness and enforcement.
For students and young migrants, safety is uneven and deeply mediated by identity. Abhinav Shah, a law student, feels secure within his hostel but acknowledges that this comfort is shaped by caste and religious privilege. He has observed both implicit and explicit communal hostility. He says, “Minor fights break out, and my friends from minority communities have faced discrimination. Pune feels pretty safe for me, but not equally for everyone.”
Pratyancha Sinha, a Symbiosis student living in Viman Nagar, rates the area’s safety a cautious 6.5 out of 10. While she feels safer than friends in cities like Delhi or Kolkata, incidents of catcalling and harassment are common, even in crowded areas. “It’s fairly safe,” she says, “but still scary as a non-local.”
Taken together, these voices point to a city at a crossroads. Pune is neither unsafe nor secure; unfortunately, it exists in a fragile middle ground merely sustained by habit and comparison. Safety, residents acknowledge, cannot rest on relative comfort alone. The challenge lies in recognising everyday vulnerabilities before they harden into something far more dangerous.
Curated by Shiv Shakti Mishra
