BENGALURU: Janaagraha, a city NGO, has proposed the inclusion of their community policing initiative in the Karnataka Police Act. The initiative currently runs with the help of volunteers and residents, who are called Area Suraksha Mitras (ASM), and coordinate with 18 police stations. To scale it up, they intend to gradually hand over the initiative to the Bengaluru City Police (BCP).
“As the first step towards including this initiative in the state’s Police Act, BCP has appointed Community Liaison Officers (CLOs), who are assistant sub-inspectors, in each of the 108 police stations. Eventually, the initiative will become their project, with the CLOs selecting ASMs from among the residents in the locality. ASMs function as the eyes and ears of the police, and raise awareness among residents to reduce and prevent crimes in the locality,” said Mahalakshmi B, associate manager of Digital Marketing at Janaagraha.
There are 30-40 ASMs per police station. They meet once a month at the police station to discuss recent crime trends. “We met Home Minister G Parameshwara and proposed the idea. We will first hand-hold the CLOs in the initiative, and then see how it goes. Based on the results, it is up to the state to take it up as per the act. We will begin the training in January 2019. They will be told how to mobilise the Suraksha Mitras, how to coordinate, be people-friendly and use technology,” said Deepak Naik, associate manager of Community Policing.
Since the initiative was launched in 2013, there have been several success stories. Many of these include reuniting families with missing senior citizens or children; tracing stolen vehicles, wallets or mobile phones; helping a woman suffering domestic abuse to register an FIR, and more. Until now, instead of a CLO, there was an NGO volunteer at the police station who would coordinate between ASMs and the police officials. “To scale it up and make it sustainable, a police officer was needed to coordinate with citizens and authorities for any issues, which is why we decided to change the model. A big challenge will be to not have constant transfers of police persons. We have requested that the assistant sub-inspector appointed as CLO to remain in the post for at least two years,” Naik explained.