BENGALURU: In September this year, City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao had ordered that law and order police stations be “clean and tidy”. While the top cop gave the police stations a deadline of 15 days to do so, orders were also given to create a people-friendly look with more facilities attached to them. In a report on October 18, 2019, TNIE had pointed out that there was a lack of proper rooms to store evidence of ongoing court cases. Such rooms are known as ‘muddemal’ rooms.
Following the report, all 108 police stations in the city, including 44 traffic police stations, have been ordered to include a muddemal room on their premises. The police stations should also have women’s toilets, separate rooms for women, and a meeting room.
“The problem arises out of the unclaimed muddemal property. There are cases wherein the police have seizes two-wheelers, a valuable artifact or cash, but no one comes forward to claim it as their property. Such muddemal property continues to pile up at the police stations for years. The district magistrate’s permission is required to do away with such articles,” said a senior police officer.