The murder of Chittoor mayor Katari Anuradha and her husband Mohan in Chittoor in November 2015 has paved the way for the strategic introduction of people-friendly policing.
One and half years after the crime, the Chittoor police district has 4,000 community police officers (CPOs), outnumbering the regular police strength. First of its kind in India, the concept of CPOs took shape during the investigation into the murders.
In an exclusive interview to The Hindu , District Superintendent of Police Ghattamaneni Srinivas observed that the murders had led to rapid digitisation of policing.
“People of Chittoor stood by the police. It’s a record achievement that the onerous task of investigation into the double murders was completed quickly, and all the accused were brought to justice,” he said.
Between November and December 2015, a multitude of people started giving the police useful information leading to the arrests and surrenders in the murder case.
“Some youngsters came forward to render voluntary service to the Police Department. This was the beginning. In January 2016, the unique CPOs’ mission was launched with about a couple of hundred. Now, the number has gone up to 4,000 and will cross the 10,000-mark in the next two years. Youth and professionals of many categories are a big plus to our multiple tasks. In two years, Chittoor will be hopefully devoid of crime,” the SP said.
Red sanders smuggling
Referring to red sanders smuggling, the SP said that during the last three years, a number of workshops and seminars on the subject had been conducted. A series of raids in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bhutan, U.P. and West Bengal led to the arrest of several kingpins, including Chinese and Nepalese nationals, along with seizure of red sanders logs worth over several crores.
Capture of notorious figures such as Kollam Gangireddy provided the much-required fillip to controlling overseas operations. “Development of software to detect the movement of red sanders smugglers and forensic modules to track them is our exclusive achievement. All this has culminated in the first-ever mobile command control vehicle launch by the Chittoor police in the State,” the official said.
