Students get a chance to learn about police

The district police on Saturday launched “Know your police”, an awareness programme for school students to help them shed inhibitions about the police and get an insight into their functioning.

Superintendent of Police N.M. Mylvahanan launched the new concept, , at the Town police station here in the presence of Collector K. Nanthakumar.

“About 98 per cent of the people have no direct contact with the police and this programme is aimed at helping the school students to visit police stations and familiarise with the functioning of the police,” the SP said.

“The programme was also aimed at helping the students learn how to lodge a complaint, who is a sentry, how to identify the ranks of police officers, what is an FIR, what is a charge sheet and what is trial,” he said.

Police stations at all the seven sub-divisional headquarters were thrown open to more than 350 students on Saturday.

Class XI students could visit police stations every Saturday, the SP said, adding “we are planning to take 2,000 students a month and all the about 15,000 students in six months”. The awareness programme would continue next year too after getting the feedback, he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Nanthakumar said students never had access to police stations and this programme gave them an opportunity to know about the police, who functioned for their protection. The students should help the police maintain peace and harmony in society, he said.

The programme would become a success when the students directly approached the police without any inhibition and get their grievances redressed.

“The police may feel this is an additional work, but they should take it in their stride,” the Collector noted.

“I never knew that the police should produce an arrested person in the court for remand within 24 hours,” exclaimed P. Bavani, a student of Municipal Girls’ Higher Secondary School, after visiting the police station here.

She had heard about the FIR but got to see an FIR copy for the first time now, she added.

“2,000 students to be allowed into police stations every month”