CUTTACK: The Commissionerate Police’s claim of taking steps to ensure safety and security of elderly persons in Cuttack has fallen flat with at least three senior citizens losing their lives in unnatural circumstances in the city in the last one month.
The recent death of an elderly couple allegedly by suicide along with their son at their rented accommodation in CDA Sector-14 on August 2 and the murder of another 74-year-old woman reportedly by her two mentally unstable sons on September 14 have raised concerns over the safety and security, and well-being of the senior citizens.
In both the cases, the elderly persons had been leading their lives under extreme mental and financial stress but police had no idea about it as the senior citizens' security cell is non-functional for around four years now. The cells formed to look after the welfare of the elderly are lying defunct in all the 19 police stations in the city since 2020 following outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.
The Commissionerate Police had formed the senior citizens security cell in every police station in 2017, under the charge of a nodal officer and an assistant nodal officer, to address the grievances of the elderly. Surveys were conducted and senior citizens of 60 years and above were identified and provided with ID cards.
They were provided with an android phone and added to a WhatsApp group to communicate with police if they faced any problem.
This apart, keeping special focus on those elderly living alone, the cell’s officers were asked to visit their homes every 15 days to enquire about their well-being and address their problems. Meetings were also conducted every three months to facilitate the elderly to express their problems like family feuds, neglect by children etc., and find solutions to their woes.
“However presently, neither the cells active nor the cell phones of the nodal and assistant nodal officers operational. This apart, no officer now visits the elderly citizens’ homes or conducts meetings to address their issues. There is also no information on the bikes and mobile phones provided to them. The officials are instead engaged in helmet checking,” rued Bishnu Mohan Das Samant, general secretary of Katak Barishta Nagarika Mahasabha.
He further said that the committee had written several times to the DCP, Cuttack and Twin City commissioner requesting to make the senior citizen security cells functional again but in vain.
Efforts to elicit response from the Commissionerate Police proved futile.