It seems Kochi was blessed with peace and harmony during the three days of Emerging Kerala 2012.
There were no criminal incidents reported in the city, not because there weren’t any untoward incidents but there was no policeman in the stations to file the cases.
A policeman in the city who did not want to be named said that the coming week would be hectic days for them as the officials would have to look into all the incidents that took place in their respective police station limits during the days of Emerging Kerala.
“There were quite a number of complaints regarding burglary, cheating cases and manhandling cases. As many as 23 complaints have been received in my police station limit alone and the investigation on these cases has to begin from Saturday itself. Even the administrative officials in the police stations who normally register the complaints were assigned for Emerging Kerala duty,” a policeman said.
The activities of Shadow police which keeps a tab on illegal activities came to a halt following Emerging Kerala 2012.
The common man who applied for passports too had to bear the brunt, as there was no cop to do the verification duty.
“Since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other foreign delegates were in the city, all the policemen were assingned security duty. But from Friday, we resumed the passport verification job and policing activities.
It is true that more policemen were deployed to oversee the security arrangements in the city but the basic policing like traffic management and night patrolling were carried out,” a top police official said.
He lauded the work of the police as no incident on the security of the delegates was reported. “The police force did a commendable job in the last three days for the smooth functioning of Emerging Kerala,” he said.