Wake up before it’s too late; get support staff verified

The murder of a 36-year-old lady bank cashier in the up-market Kumara Park area indicates gross negligence on part of residents in verifying the antecedents of administrative and maintenance staff in residential buildings.

This, despite the Bangalore police department having recently initiated a scheme called Hamari Suraksha. The scheme entails gathering details on watchmen (like Ashraf), domestic help, and all employees of support services, including milkmen, for residential buildings to be posted on a website named hamarisuraksha.com.

Details like the person’s photographs, fingerprints, permanent residential address and all information that is pertinent for a background check.

With the help of this site, home owners – as well offices employing support staff – could add their employee details to an online database.

To fetch better results, this was made available at Cubbon Park police station free of cost. Alternatively, all these details could be gathered through a committee welfare association member accompanied by police personnel for verification.

But all this appears to have gone down the drain. T Suneel Kumar Additional Commissioner (Law & Order), said: “These sincere attempts have always failed; people do not bother until they witness such a gory crime in their neighbourhood. This happens because of the negligence on part of the residents in the city.”