One of the first initiatives Additional Director General of Police Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal undertook soon after he took over as City Police Commissioner was to launch the scheme of enabling the public to make video calls to report their grievances.
Mr. Aggarwal took charge during the peak of the pandemic, when public gathering was prohibited. The video call grievance redressal system was introduced as a workaround to this. After calls from people started pouring in, the thrice-a-week facility was extended to the Additional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners of Police, enabling redressal of more cases.
“Every grievance is noted down and pursued till a legal solution is arrived at. The details are computerised and transmitted to the concerned police stations for appropriate action. The scheme has particularly helped senior citizens, differently abled and women to reach out to senior police officers with their grievances,” Mr. Aggarwal said.
Another public outreach model was to publicise the name/contact number of police officials on night duty around the city. A few hundred police personnel, led by senior police officers, are deployed on night rounds covering the 135 police station limits. After their contact details were shared via social media, several calls were received from people seeking assistance.
“By deploying internet-enabled services to reach out to the public, we are not compromising on conventional policing in any way. In fact, we have introduced the concept of foot patrolling, where small teams of policemen walk through their respective police station limits. This has made policing more visible and accessible,” the Police Commissioner said.
With many young police personnel active on social media, netizens get in touch with them to share information on incidents that require police intervention. “There have been many instances where people shared actionable inputs via social media and helped resolve certain issues. Some of the common issues are traffic violations and encroachment of pedestrian platforms,” a senior police officer said.
“Hundreds of mobile phones that were reported stolen have been recovered and handed over to the owners last month. The decentralisation of cyber crime units at the police station level has enabled effective investigation of cyber offences, resulting in the seizure of over ₹30 lakh swindled through online scams,” the official said.
Though officials from across the State have been on social media over the last few years, their activity logs went up post-lockdown. They have been sharing personal mobile numbers, requesting people to reach out to them in case of a crisis.
V. Vikraman, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Adyar, who is active on Twitter, said social media was a huge help in gathering information. “Those who are not comfortable meeting a police officer in person are more comfortable sharing details online,” he said.
Tiruvallur SP P. Aravindhan said the leads that come through social media were accurate and hardly misleading. “We get issues pertaining to animal cruelty and transportation of ill-legal cattle, among others. They send us direct messages on Twitter,” he said, adding that a murder case was solved through a tip-off that came through Twitter.
“A girl was murdered and buried. Her brother, from a neighbouring State, informed us that she had gone missing. With his inputs, we tracked the case and arrested those involved,” Mr. Aravindhan said.
In Sivaganga, Superintendent of Police R. Rohith Nathan said a WhatsApp number for people to communicate their grievances had helped. While police stations would remain the hub of the public redressal system, any issue that remained unresolved could be flagged using WhatsApp.
