It is a year since the Malleswaram blast case took place in the vicinity of the State office of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The reported steps taken by the Bangalore police to ward off the recurrence of such a blatant attack which resulted in injuries to 16 persons including two college students is far from convincing.
There is nothing much that the police have subsumed to prevent the recurrence of such incidents given the fact that Bangalore is rated as one of the fastest growing cities and there are far too many new migrants with every passing day.
A close look at the developments, be it the preventive steps that have been taken or the investigation of the case is revealing. For the common people, police surveillance is all about the khaki clad men snooping into their privacy which they do not want but the fact remains that a criminal activity can be timed at any place, to the whims and fancies of the perpetrator, with the police entering the scene as a matter for investigation.
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City Police Commissioner Raghavendra H. Auradkar argues that in the wake of the attack many security measures have been initiated to make the city more secure and that all the measures cannot be spelt out for security reasons. Another official said that the CCTV cameras, which played a crucial role in the investigations, are now being used even in the investigation of crimes leave alone motor traffic surveillance. But the manner in which investigations have come to a standstill in the Malleswaram blast case is a cause for worry. The headway achieved by the Bangalore police thus far is largely thanks to their Tamil Nadu counterparts.
What may perhaps help the police in preventing crimes is a closer interface with the people particularly at the station level. Such an exercise had been undertaken with all the zeal and enthusiasm about three decades ago to prevent dacoities which was dreaded at that point of time.
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