The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Police response time comes under scrutiny Law and order

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Monday, Feb 04, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Police response time comes under scrutiny Law and order

Responding quickly to complaints does not mean just alerting or passing on the message to the control room, writes Marri Ramu

A lot has been said and discussed about improving response time of the police. The attack on actor Rajasekhar has once again brought the issue under sharp focus.

City Police Commissioner B. Prasada Rao felt the incident could have been prevented had the police party that received a call from the actor about the possible attack alerted the main police control room immediately. But making the police respond quic kly to complaints does not involve only alerting or passing on message to the control room.

A basic flaw in the system is absence of a mechanism to verify how fast the complaints lodged by public are being attended to. The higher-ups claim they check the timings of the calls received by the control room and the police parties reaching the scene of offence or place of incidents.

In most of the cases, they feel the police reach the spot within a ‘reasonable time’. But the control room is only one medium through which people approach the law-enforcers. Several people rush to the nearest police stations to lodge complaints, and there is no method to verify if the response time as better in such cases.

If a person goes to the police station, the sentry stops him at the entrance and allows him inside only after making his own inquiries. This takes at least half a minute and longer if it is in the night. In case of a theft, the constable at the reception counter asks the complainant to meet the Detective Sub-Inspector or the duty officer if the subject is different. But he or she does not bother to assess the situation and importance of immediately reacting to the situation.

If it is theft or burglary of property, alerting the control room and other stations might help apprehend the offenders by checking vehicles and bus and railway stations. More over, the police are particular about confirming if the place of incident falls in their jurisdiction.There are several complaints about police reaching the spot late on point of jurisdiction. A person from Begumpet may not know in which police station to lodge a complaint if his purse is stolen at Secunderabad clock tower. For example, the area around Charminar comes under three different police stations.

Assessing the situation and attending to the complaint immediately at police station level would go a long way in improving the response time of the police.

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