Creation of Cells or Special Wings in Police Department to address people’s problems is not new but here is a ‘Four C’ programme which is making a huge difference.
A brainchild of Cyberabad Police Commissioner C.V. Anand, the ‘Cyberabad Central Complaint Cell’ - now gradually becoming popular as ‘Four C’ - is turning out to be promising innovation in providing top police brass access to the citizens, besides also acting as deterrent against police officials not responding to citizens’ complaints
It is normal practice in police units -districts or Commissionerates- that individuals represent to the heads like SPs or Commissioners over not securing justice at the police stations concerned. The top officials then endorse the petitions and send them to the Sub-Inspector or Inspector concerned for action.
“Later, we tend to forget and fail to find out what follow-up action was taken. If the complainant comes for second or third time also, we would not be able to recall what the complaint was,” points out a police officer. Since the higher-ups don’t pursue about the action initiated, the field level officers too ignore such complaints.
In order to rectify such flaws, Mr. Anand introduced ‘Four C’ in his Commissionerate on an experimental basis in May, 2013.
A separate reception desk headed by an SI was created at the front office of the Commissionerate. Complainants wanting to meet the Commissioner will first explain their problems to the SI who would note down details in a specially designed petition form. Gist of the complaint is entered and uploaded to a computer.
Before meeting the Commissioner, the petitioner is asked to meet the police inspector, ACP and DCP concerned in that order. “Responses of the Inspector, ACP, DCP are filled in the columns and then the Commissioner would give audience to the complainant,” explained G. Sreekanth, SI, ‘Four C’ reception desk.
After listening to the person, the CP would endorse the form and send it to the Inspector concerned in sealed cover for action. The Inspector would give ‘hand-written’ explanation citing the action he had taken and the findings arrived at in the form. The same is explained to the petition over phone by Mr. Sreekanth. If the gist of the complaint and the Inspector’s explanation don’t match, further clarifications are sought from the officer.
“This process is continued within legal technicalities of the complaint and the SI would take feedback of the complaint, write it on the form and send back to me to understand if the problem was really solved,” explained Mr. Anand.
