Bengaluru city police to focus on curbing crimes against women, children

BENGALURU: In order to strengthen police-public partnership, the Bengaluru city police announced a Facebook page and a website for every police station in the city. Making the announcement at the inauguration of Crime Prevention Month (observed during December), City Police Commissioner N.S. Megharikh said this was an effort towards ‘greater citizen participation’ in policing.

As part of the Crime Prevention month the city police laid emphasis on dealing with crimes against women and children. “Incidents of crimes against women and children, especially sexual offences against children, have increased drastically. This is because of amendments to existing laws and increased awareness among the people,” Megharikh said.

“We want to assure people that the police have sub-zero tolerance to such offences and we will try to detect these cases and arrest those perpetrating these crimes in as little time as possible,” he added.

Community policing

Emphasizing on greater participation and benefits of public-police partnership DG & IGP Om Prakash stressed on the need for community policing. “Every citizen is a police man. As much as they have a right to be protected by the police, citizens are also duty bound to help them,” he said. It was not possible to have a policeman on every street corner and hence the citizens have to be the eyes and ears of the police.

B.N. Garudachar, former DG said that there were complaints of policemen not reaching crime spots on time, of low detection rates and lack of motivation. However, he said the big question was whether the police were equipped to handle the increasing population.

“The vacancies in the police department are alarming. The number of law and order police stations or traffic police stations are simply not enough to handle the city which is estimated to have a population of over one crore and a floating population of over 6 lakh,” he said.

He suggested that every year, ten more law and order police stations and five more traffic police stations be added to the city so that the police were equipped to handle the city efficiently. “The government should also provide 100% housing to all police constables so that they do not have to commute long distance to reach their stations,” he said.

152 CCTV cameras installed

As part of the mega-city project, 152 CCTV cameras covering the central business district areas under 16 police stations have been installed in the city. Each of these cameras will be continuously monitored. Home Secretary S.K. Pattanayak said the government had sanctioned Rs 40 crore towards this project. Cameras would be installed across the state in a phased manner, he added.

Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.