Residents must submit details of domestic helps, drivers and security guards to police.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The string of murders of elderly people by their domestic helps has forced the city police to take strict measures to prevent such incidents in the future.
The Mumbai police are now planning to approach housing societies, asking them to force residents to submit details of their servants and other household helps before hiring them.
A senior police officer said they will soon start sending notices to housing societies under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for seeking information on newly-hired domestic helps or security guards.
“If the society office bearers or the residents don’t furnish the details to police, action will be taken against them under Section 188 (not following lawful direction) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC),” the officer said. The maximum punishment for such violation is three-month simple imprisonment, he added.
The officers said the tough stand is being taken by the police administration as it has been observed that residents have a lackluster attitude towards submitting the details of their servants.
“In the recent murder cases, the victims did not submit the details of their domestic helps despite several requests. People don’t realize that it is for their own safety,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone IX) Pratap Dighavkar. “This poses a great security threat, especially to senior citizens,” Dighavkar added.
The police had recently introduced a new initiative called Societies Cops, wherein each cop has been assigned at least five-seven housing societies. Their mandate is to be in regular touch with the office-bearers and members of these societies and also attend their meetings. They are also required to keep a tab on the servants, security guards and other house helps hired by the residents and seek their details from them.
“However, in spite of having one-point police personnel at their disposal, it has been observed that the residents have been failing to provide the details to them,” the police said.
“We hope that the tougher measures of the law should compel the officer-bearers and the society members to be more prompt in submitting details to the police,” said senior inspector Arun Bhagat of the Juhu police station.
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