As part of a pre-emptive measure to control the crime rate in the city, the police have introduced a novel interface with family members of several history-sheeters at various police stations.
Police personnel went on door-to-door visits of residents of criminals and personally invited the parents or elder family members to participate in the meeting organised at the police station to prevent the rising crime rate.
On the invitation of police, around 100 persons assembled at D’ Nagar Police Station and some of the history-sheeters too turned up for the meeting on Tuesday.
S.Balamurugan Sub-Inspector of Police said, “This exercise is to control the crime rate as per instructions from our superiors. We targeted the criminals who are still active in the police limits of D’Nagar and Mettupalayam stations. Based on our history sheets maintained in the police stations, we called the parents or family members of criminals from D’Nagar, Saram, Brindavanam Venkateshwara Nagar, Senbagapuram, Gorimedu and Mettupalayam.”
Superintendent of Police, South T.Bairavasamy commenced the interface with a mix of advice and caution.
The police officer told the gathering to watch their wards keenly so as to prevent them from indulging in further criminal activities. He advised them to counsel their wards and if they failed to heed the advice, alert the police about their criminal activities.
Mr.Bairavasamy told The Hindu , “Without any reason many teenage boys are involved in heinous crimes after taking liquor or for other reasons and parents are not taking any care of their wards. The children are going astray as there is no family pressure to mend. So, the root cause for the criminal activities is that there are no proper checks from parents. Police alone can not check the crimes without cooperation from relatives, parents and the society.”
He explained that the meeting was conducted to educate the parents and to explain the reasons for commission of crimes and on the role of parents to prevent crimes.
Mr.Bairavasamy said, “Parents also can not escape part of the responsibility for crimes, many of which occurred with their knowledge. The whereabouts of offenders who after committing a crime take shelter somewhere else is also sometimes known to the family.
Hereafter, take care of all these things and prevent new generation of children from taking to crime.
Or other wise, the law will not spare the person who co-operated the crime or the harbouring the criminals in future.”
L.V.Senthilkumar, Inspector of Police hoped that this kind of an interface would have a deterrent effect on criminals from committing further crimes.