Police helpline receives 300 SMSes in 2 days

The newly inaugurated citizens’ grievance helpline has been receiving a flurry of SMSes, with over 300 received in the two days after it was made functional. While some of the text messages were congratulatory, some were also complaints.

“The helpline was inaugurated on Saturday. By Monday morning, we have already received over 300 SMSes on the two helplines numbers,” said deputy commissioner of police (operations) Rajkumar Vhatkar.

He added that citizens are generally complaining about pending passport cases, non-recovery of stolen property, and mobile theft. “Around 15% of the text messages were congratulatory. People said that it was a good initiative. We also received an SMS from a US-based person, congratulating the police on the initiative,” Vhatkar said.

The police are now trying to use software that would  enable them to reply to citizens about the receipt of their complaints and the action taken.

“After a complaint is received on the helpline, either a call is made from the control room or from the police station concerned to the informant. He/she is called to the police station to register a formal FIR. In a bribery-related case, the informant would be called directly by the deputy police commissioner concerned,” said Vhatkar.