Kolkata (West Bengal): It is almost a pan-India phenomenon, especially in metro cities, that the city police headquarters receive complaints about personnel on night patrolling duties either neglect their duty or accept bribes on the open streets from trucks or matadors carrying goods. In order to curb these incidents, the Kolkata Police Headquarters has now decided to adopt a unique approach wherein a control room has been set up to observe the actions of police personnel. The entire initiative is the brainchild of the city police commissioner, Soumen Mitra.
Under the new initiative, the control room set up at the city police headquarters in central Kolkata, will monitor the movements and actions of personnel on patrolling duty, especially those deputed in night patrolling. Adding to this, the movement of police vehicles from the control room will also be under surveillance.
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"This will, to an end put a bridle on such menaces by a section of the forces personnel, for which ultimately the force as a whole gets a bad name," said officials from the city police headquarters citing anonymity. As per the directive issued by the city police commissioner from now onwards the waiting police jeeps or police vans deployed for night patrolling will have to be stopped in those places where CCTVs installed, so that the activities of the policemen on night patrolling can be monitored from the control room.
The project will be piloted from Lalbazar area and will be supervised by two senior officers in the ranks of joint commissioner (headquarters) and joint commissioner (traffic). Recently, a major clash broke out between two groups at Maniktala in North Kolkata, wherein vehicles were destroyed in the clashes. The locals complained that although the police was informed in time, there was a significant delay by police in arriving at the spot.
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