Officials attending calls at two Mumbai police helpline cells are a harried lot. The reason being that more than 50 calls they receive a day turn out to be hoax, and from among the others, action can be taken only on a few.
According to insiders, many of the calls that helplines '100' and '103' (operated by city police) receive are hilarious in nature and have nothing to do with policing.
“Many call to complain on domestic issues – about their husbands, in-laws, siblings, sons, daughters,” said a police source.
“Occasionally we get calls from elderly people asking us to get them snacks or tea, and most of the time they are adamant about their demands without realising that the helpline number is not for such issues,” added the official.
The worst part is, many people call and give the police wrong information about someone they want to take vengeance on.
“Everyday we receive on an average 10,000 to 11,000 calls, of which approximately 50% are only of zero to ten seconds duration. Action can be taken only in about 1,100 to 1,500 cases,” said a senior police official.
Another senior official said they received many calls from hyper-alert citizens, who suspect they are being followed by hooligans, or who claim they had seen/heard about a 'terrorist' keeping a bag in bus/train, etc.
The figures with police department reveal that of the 39,8370 calls received on helpline number '100' last November, action could be taken only in the case of 29,710. Similarly, of the 15,664 calls on '103', action could be taken only on 2,109.
Similarly, in October, of the 3,37,980 calls received on '100', action could be initiated only in 38,271; while for the 17,015 calls received on '103', only 2,960 were found good enough to be probed.
The most popular police emergency helpline number is 100; it was for women, children and senior citizens that 103 was introduced a few years back.
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