BENGALURU: The community policing programme, launched in Bengaluru in 2013 with a pilot project done across seven police stations in the city, had become a hit in 18 police stations in 2016. A few months ago, City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao made the community policing programme effective by extending in to all 108 law and order police stations in the city.
The community policing programme was launched as a collaborative effort of the Bangalore City Police and Janaagraha, a non-governmental organisation. The objective of the programme is to address neighbourhood safety and security concerns through responsible participation of the citizenry in crime prevention, at the level of the local community where both citizens and police work in partnership to ensure a safe and secure neighbourhood.
A Community Policing Advisory Group (CPAG) gives training to the Community Liaison Officer(CLO) who is of the rank of constable, head constable or assistant sub-inspector and has been nominated from the police station for it. The CLO will further be trained by the CPAG, and will then look for 25-30 Area Suraksha Mitras (ASM) who are representatives of the local community. The officers and Mitra will look at keeping the city safe.
Deepak Naik, manager, community policing, said, “After Bhaskar Rao took charge as police commissioner, the programme was expanded to all the stations and training commenced two months ago for the liaison officers in the respective stations. So far, all the CLOs who were nominated have been trained by CPAG. And in eight police stations, Area Suraksha Mitras were chosen.”
Dr ST Ramesh, former state police chief, said the training given to CLOs is quite simple. “We explain to them what community policing is and how is it carried forward. We explain how they can work with the citizens. Any level of officer can become a CLO, depending on how interested he is and his attitude and responsibility towards the post of CLO,” said Dr Ramesh.
The ASM has some specific requirements. Only people above 25 years of age can apply for the post. A person with a primary school education is eligible to be an ASM, should not have any political affiliation or any previous criminal record, and should be willing to work for 4-5 hours a week. Further, the ASMs and beat officers of the police station should conduct beat level and door-to-door (D2D) awareness programme.
In spite of community policing being extended to all police stations, Naik stated that there is a lack of awareness, and not many have come forward to apply as ASMs. The liaison officer and beat officer are now tasked with speaking to citizens and spreading awareness on it.
