The city police are set to join hands with residents to keep an eye out for anti-social activities and improve policing. They have mooted the idea of community liaison groups (CLG), which will closely work with residents to maintain law and order.
To improve policing, the city has been divided into sectors with three officers patrolling each sector 24x7 on a shift basis. This is apart from the regular beat patrol team.
“The CLG will comprise ten residents of the locality who will be in constant touch with the police officers in their sector,” said K. Sankar, joint commissioner of police, west zone.
The group members will be from different walks of life. “We will ensure that the residents have a clean background. The group will be in constant touch with police officers in their sector and alert them about suspicious elements and anti-social activities in their locality,” said Prem Anand Sinha, deputy commissioner of police, Anna Nagar.
Residents can also approach the officers for help with civic problems.
“They will be guided on how to file a complaint and which official to contact in the department concerned. Civic authorities from the Corporation, TANGEDCO and Metrowater will take part in the weekly meetings,” said Mr. Sankar.
However some residents expressed concerns about the initiative. “This venture should not turn out like the Friends of Police initiative where some civilian volunteers began misusing their powers. The police should conduct proper background check before selecting members,” said a resident.
Keywords: social activities, Chennai police
The initiative although seems novel, it is not something that the police is not used to. The police know exactly who the troublesome
elements in the society are and in most cases these elements are
working in close cooperation with police.
It would be interesting to know what the police mean by "all walks of
life". I would consider this move from the police to be one of the
attempts to transfer their roles to the public and use the these
representatives as grievance cell.
My wife and I had approached the police in many occasions to get their
attention to social problems in our area. Most of the time they are
not willing to come and in instances when a police arrives, he instead
of investigating and booking a case tries to solve the problem by his
own discretion. No, with the new approach, i suspect that these
members would solve law and order problems in society at their
discretion, both of which is dangerous.
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