Hyderabad: Community policing in for major thrust in city

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad city police commissioner called for community policing amongst the citizens to create awareness about the law & order in society and to develop a trusting bond between the locals and police.

The City Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar tweeted that community policing means making community a partner in policing.

Welcoming suggestions from the society in this regard, he said, "We believe that every citizen is a cop and every cop is a citizen. It is very important to inculcate the feeling among children that they too are little cops."

S Sudhakar, an inspector of Begum Bazar PS noted that community policing was a law enforcement strategy which evolved in the 1980s in USA. Further, he said, "The community policing is a philosophy of law enforcement agencies which allows the police officers to work regularly in their areas and develop a bond with the locals. This bond helps the officers in solving crime and makes the citizens feel safe with police around them."

"With community policing there are chances that we can prevent incidences of crimes because of the bond and trust developed between the community and police. An alert society would approach the friendly police to complain about rogue elements and anti-social activities in a locality thus helping in prevention of crimes," said Praveen Kumar, an officer at CCS.

Stressing the importance of community policing, he cited the recent incident of Chittapur village in Siddipet wherein the lives of two daughters were saved from a man. He said, "The police foiled the murderous attempt of a man who was a butcher by profession because the police received information beforehand by the alert villagers.

Following the tip that the man was behaving weirdly, the cops kept a watch on his house and jumped into action saving the two daughters. Though the girls suffered minor injuries, but they were rescued, and a major crime was averted."

"Community policing helps in prevention of crime as the cops receive authentic and accurate information from locals who keep a close tab on suspicious activities and persons at ground level," added the officer.