Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Lookouts to spot escaping criminals

Thiruvananthapuram: The city police are recruiting informants from among cellphone-owning head-load workers, shopkeepers, wayside vendors and even fisherwomen to track vehicles of lawbreakers fleeing the city after committing a violent crime.

The police discussed the scheme in detail at a recent “crime conference” chaired by City Police Commissioner Ravada Azad Chandrasekhar.

The scenario pictured by the police at the meeting was this: “There is a gangland murder in the city. The suspects are fleeing in a van. The police have the description and registration number of the vehicle. The information is conveyed immediately as text messages to the members of the neighbourhood watch in border police stations. They are asked to lookout for the vehicle and even organise a temporary road block if the situation demands. One of the spotters, a wayside vendor, sees the vehicle at Sreekaryam. The police block the road and detain the suspects.”

Officials said the Commissioner had asked station house officers of border police stations to recruit “spotters or lookouts” at the street level in Pallichal, Sreekaryam, Vazhayila, Mannanthala, Ambalamukku and Vizhinjam localities.

The informants will be given basic training and sensitised to the emerging security requirements of the State. They will be rewarded if their information helps the police stop crime.

The police said the new scheme was part of the general tightening of security in view of the Independence Day celebrations on August 15.

They are also concerned that a number of public offices in the city had been receiving bomb threats (most of it untraced and chiefly from pranksters) ever since an anonymous telephone caller told a Bangalore-based television reporter on July 27 that terrorists will target Kerala. The police believe that not all the hoax calls were from pranksters.

They suspect that extremist elements could have made some of the calls to “test or tire” police response.

The police said that a “wave of hoax bomb threats” was usual in the days preceding national celebrations.

To check such scaremongers who often use pay phones to make bomb threats, the police have asked owners of coin-operated public phones in the city to allow only those who properly identify themselves to use the devices.

The police will intensify night patrolling from Monday. They will set up pickets at all entry points into the city.

Vehicles entering the city at night and in the early hours of the day will be checked for arms and explosives.

The police have requested citizens travelling at night to carry documents proving their identity.

The police deployment will be scaled down after the Independence Day celebrations.

Law enforcers are “discreetly” verifying the occupants of hotels and lodges in the city and also foreign nationals staying in private resorts and houses.

The Central Stadium, where the Chief Minister will address the public on Independence Day, is under police guard.

Policemen will be posted on high rises surrounding the stadium on August 15.

The police have requested the public not to bring bags, containers and packages to the stadium on August 15.

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