The Hindu : Kerala News : Pol-Com to be launched tomorrow

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Friday, Oct 20, 2006
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Kerala

Pol-Com to be launched tomorrow

Staff Reporter

Aimed at streamlining participatory policing

KOCHI: A coordinating body for different interfaces that the City Police have established with various agencies as part of community policing will be formed soon.

Pol-Com, the Police-Communities Initiatives in the city, will be formally launched by Minister for Home Kodiyeri Balakrishnan at the second anniversary meeting of Police Residents Associations Initiatives in District Ernakulam (PRIDE) to be held at the Town Hall on October 21.

The City Police have regular interactions with at least three groups and are planning to expand their activities. Senior officers in the force meet with the representatives of the merchant community bimonthly.

"This has become a two-way process, with Action Taken Reports being presented from either sides," said City Police Commissioner P. Vijayan.

Regular interactions could solve many problems such as parking along Broadway and improving security arrangements at the shops. On their part, the merchants were asked to conduct security audits of their institutions, with the police providing back-up.

The police have begun regular interaction with manpower consultancy agencies. The drive was taken up after an increase in complaints regarding cheating of persons after offering overseas placements. Regular interactions have ensured to a great extend that fraudsters are weeded out, said the police.

PRIDE is another successful interface that the City Police have established. Effective fighting of petty crimes in the residential areas, by employing tools such as combined night patrolling by representatives of residents associations and the police are the highlights of this programme.

The police have been planning to increase the interaction with private security personnel. "They outnumber the police force. There are more than 10,000 private security personnel working in the city compared to 2,500-odd policemen. The former could gather more information about movements of thieves and robbers during night hours than policemen on beat duty. We are planning to tap this flow of information," said Mr. Vijayan.

The City Police were also working out modalities of increased intelligence sharing with security agencies in vital installations in the city. This is meant to advance the levels of security at these points within the shortest possible time once an official alarm has been sounded.

"Most of these agencies lack in intelligence. If we could maintain a steady flow of information between City Police and these agencies, this could be done immediately," said Mr. Vijayan.

The Anti-Harassment Cell formed to take up cases of offences against women and children was another effort towards participatory policing.

The road safety campaign, which began with a carnival last year, has been instrumental in bringing down accident rate within the city limits.

Another phase of opening out the police for the public was taking up social welfare projects. The City Police, in association with Santhigiri Ashram, distributed preventive medicine for chikungunya to around 25,000 persons in the city. As part of Pol-Com, around 200 promoters will be selected from each of these programmes. These persons will be selected based on their track record of social activities.

The promoters' role will be to coordinate the interactions between their respective groups and the police force. They will also be in constant interaction with the top rung of the police force. The promoters will be given photo-identity cards. The Pol-Com will be coordinated by the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime Detachment).

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