Delhi police's senior citizen cell, formed five years ago for the security of elderly people following a spate of attacks on them has not received many takers.
Delhi police's senior citizen cell, formed five years ago for the security of elderly people
following a spate of attacks on them, has not received many takers with a mere 8,182 being members of it. Officials who are part of the programme blame a lack of will and fear of privacy invasion as the reasons for the poor registration numbers in five years and deny any lack of effort from their side.
According to police data, 533 elderly people have been contacted by its special cell in the first four months this year as compared to 7,649 registered members in 2008. "We want more and more people to get themselves enrolled with us. But, despite our best efforts, the number is still not moving at the expected rate," a senior police official,
said.
According to the officer, it is not the lack of efforts (of police) which has failed to yield result but "most of the times, senior citizen themselves avoid getting themselves
registered with the police considering it as intrusion into privacy." The special cell has made 3,590 telephonic contacts with senior citizens so far this year and 49,723 visits were made by police officials to different homes to collect data related to the residents and enquire about their security.Nearly 45 criminal cases (against elders) were
reported to the police last year, out of which 16 were related to murder, six of robbery and one was of rape.
"There were 12 cases reported to us this year so far," the officer said. "We cannot deny the risk factor to senior citizens. They are the most vulnerable targets by criminals. We will soon come up with an advertisement campaign to increase awareness among senior citizens about different security and safety measures which they need to follow," he said.
Police has also earmarked certain areas which have the lowest turnout for the senior citizen cell. "We will launch a special drive in North East, North, South West and Outer districts of Delhi, as senior citizens from these areas are still remain unregistered with us," the officer said.
According to the officer, there were a total of 238 elderly people registered in North East, 323 in North, 282 in South West and 352 in outer districts in the national capital.
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