THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If you are in any exigency and are planning to ring up station house officers (SHOs) of some police station for assistance on the basis of the official online directory of the state police, there is a high chance that you might be dialling a dud number.
The phone number shown as that of the SHO won’t work mostly because the websites still carry closed user group numbers of inspectors. And in 421 stations of the state, inspectors have been replaced by sub-inspectors (SI) as SHOs. And this switch is yet to reflect on the police website.
The result: the phone of an ‘inspector’ SHO is either switched off or the call goes unanswered.
Take the case of the Balaramapuram station in Thiruvananthapuram district, whose SHO is an SI. The website still shows the name of an inspector, who was transferred much earlier, as the SHO and the call to the number remains unanswered. There are three SIs according to the website and to identify the SHO from there is pure guess work.
Highly placed sources said inspectors, with 63 stations retaining them as SHOs, generally use the same number
“The issue is largely with SIs. Though they are the new SHOs in most stations, the police website does not list their numbers as such, giving rise to technical difficulties,” a senior officer said.
“The public are the most affected. In urgent and sensitive matters, including those of women, they prefer contacting the SHOs to raise their grievances. But with the number not working, they face a dilemma as they wouldn’t know who to call next,” he said.
The matter, the officer said, has come to the attention of the top brass and the district police chiefs have been asked to take remedial measures. “We have been told to collect the available CUG numbers and re-distribute it to the SHOs. This exercise has started and is expected to be completed within a week,” the officer added.
The UDF government had tweaked the inspector-centric SHO system introduced by the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government and re-introduced the SI-centric system in vogue until 2017-18. The new government had officially rolled out the revised system by the second week of August.