The city police on Thursday re-launched its Android-based SOS application that would help even those city residents who do not have Internet connection on their mobile phone.
“Since many areas, which were added to the city police jurisdiction, have poor internet coverage, people in those areas were unable to use the online SOS facility. Hence, we have gone for the offline application,” Commissioner of Police Shailesh Kumar Yadav said.
The offline facility comes 15 months after the city police launched its first Android-based SOS application in March 2015. Through the new facility, SOS could be sent as a text, J. Dhinesh Pandian, operations director, Popular Tracking, which developed the application, said.
Mr. Yadav said that the crime prevention cell, comprising various platforms for lodging complaints, including city police Facebook page, WhatsApp number and SOS, was a big hit among the younger generation, especially college girls.
This was in addition to the access to police control room over phone number ‘100.’
Mr. Yadav said that the success of the complaint cell was based on the quick response time by the city police.
Stating that the Crime Prevention Cell was functioning round the clock, he said that immediately upon receiving an SOS, any one of the 40 two-wheeler patrols, 25 four-wheeler patrols or mobile parties in each police station would be rushed to the spot.
“It hardly takes five minutes for the nearest patrol vehicle to reach any spot in the city,” he said.
People need to download the “Madurai city police” application once again from Google Playstore and re-register themselves to use the facility.
Deputy Commissioners of Police A. Radhika (Law and Order), A.G. Babu (Traffic), R. Jayanthi (Crime), M. Rajaraman (Headquarters) and V. Eswaran (Armed Reserve) were present.
