India, June 2 -- Amid mounting criticism of the Pune police following the recent hooch tragedy that claimed several lives in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune police commissioner Amitesh Kumar has written to Nationalist Congress Party/NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar/SP) MP Supriya Sule, defending the city's law and order situation and asserting that major offences have shown a declining trend.

In a detailed, nine-page letter addressed to Sule on Monday, Kumar has said that the police department wishes to place certain 'objective observations' before the public regarding crime in the city. Kumar has argued that statistical data points to a reduction in several categories of crime over the past few years, describing Pune as 'one of the safer cities...