HYDERABAD: A picture speaks a thousand words and the pictures in the newly-released coffee table book about the Hyderabad City Police speaks volumes about what the department has accomplished during the Covid-19 times – from March-December 2020. The 200-page all-colour coffee table book titled Cop Vs Covid-19 released on December 21 chronicles the combined efforts of the state administration and particularly Hyderabad City Police in the fight against corona virus.
Speaking to Express, Anjani Kumar, Commissioner of Police (CP), Hyderabad City, said, “Handling the challenges that Covid-19 brought in was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the city police and the lessons we learned, the takeaways we got and the emotions we went through had to be captured in an all-encompassing format and the coffee table book seemed to the perfect way to do it.
That’s why we brought it out.” Launched by Chief Justice of High Court Raghvendra Singh Chauhan in presence of Somesh Kumar, IAS Chief Secretary to Government, Telangana, the book is a veritable treasure of some of the best efforts of the department caught on camera for posterity. In the page titled ‘From the Commissioner’s Desk,’ the Commissioner of Police writes, “It was a war-like situation.
The pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to law enforcement officers with massive mobilisation of force required to address the wide variety of tasks - ensuring safety of citizens, enforcements of norms, maintaining the smooth functioning of essential services among others.” The note goes on to enlist how 3,538 police officers got infected with Covid-19 and while 3,163 recovered and reported back to work, the department lost 30 martyrs fighting the virus.
The book with 15 chapters enlists how the cops went about their task. From preparation and training to creating awareness, contact tracing, enforcing lockdown, monitoring containment zones, helping migrant workers, citizen engagement, morale and motivation etc. The book depicts the above through stunning photos, graphs and illustrations. It also enlists the Plasma Yodhas (cops who recovered from Covid-19 and donated plasma) and heroes who we lost in the war against the virus.
Incidentally, many of the pages and headers have a QR code next to it and it takes you to a Youtube video or a story relevant to the particular page. “The department saw the most unprecedented times and we had a new set of government guidelines coming in every couple of days. But we adapted to the changing situation and the journey has been captured in this book. Even after 10 years, we can look back and understand what all we went through.
The community participation hit an all-time great high during these dark times. All such milestones have made it to the book,” he said about the book which took about 100 days to take shape. How do the citizens of twin cities get to see the book? “We will be releasing the digital version of it soon for everyone’s sake,” he added.