The recent attacks in Jammu and Kashmir –
terrorist or Pakistan army that killed number of our jawans recently and in the
past also in a number of serial blasts in last decade in major cities of India
– have definitely dented the credibility of the security forces in preventing
such incidents.
Merely giving statements by the politicians to
give a befitting reply are routine and stereotype statements but nothing
happens afterwards. All this has put a
tremendous strain on the security apparatus for rendering ineffective
preventive measures and making our cities defenseless, giving a chance to the
forces across the fencing to strike at regular intervals by choosing the place
and time to inflict maximum loss of life and making the life of others
miserable.
The internal security in India needs reinforcement
from all quarters and community can play a vital role in defeating the designs
of revolutionary forces in India. On the
one hand, the government is working to find ways and means to make the safe
living places, several forces across the world have also adopted community
participation measures sharing the responsibility with the police and help in
implemented the crime prevention strategies.
A terrorists strike involves three distinct stages
– pre-planning, execution and post-strike response. To deal with all these
three stages, there is a need to adoplt integrated security architecture,
introduce community participation measures by making them part of core policing
activities, maintain data bank of residents, forming resistance groups in
villages for crime prevention and information collection, reviving the
strengthening chowkidari system, having corroboration with private security
agencies to exchange of information and forming police-private partnership committees
for innovations and leveraging existing facilties especially to put a check on
network sharing and financial transactions for terror funding.
The China – our neighborhood had developed
extremely effective policing strategies by strengthening the social forces to
prevent crime.
My recent visit to the Singapore surprised me when
I did not see a sing police force there on the public places and everything is
going normal. Yet there is lot of work
going on behind the façade and officers do visit various places to educate the
public. The concept that is developing there is that of from police to
policing. Their Corporate First
Responder (CFR) scheme aims to fore a win-win partnership between the
government and business community to deal with the aftermath of terrorist
attack. The scheme allows key business
personnel from CFR members to access the restricted sites post incidents to
take mitigation measures to help expedite return to normalcy.
Certain states in India too have taken the
initiatives to provide information regarding suspicious activities of
undesirable elements with a bearing on terrorism and crime in general with the
introduction of Eyes and Ears Scheme under Delhi Police seeks by involving the
rickshaw-pullers, hawkers, security guards, shop-keepers etc.
In fact, the idea is to keep a vigil with
community participation and the Himachal Pardesh government has introduced the
concept of beat policing team.
Likewise, in Tamil Nadu, any member of the public,
who is not involved in civil or criminal case can become a member of ‘friends
of police’ who can provide useful information leading to solving crimes.
In Madhya Pardesh also, under the tutelage of
District Superintendent of Police, commuters have been formed in urban and
rural areas as per te Madhya Prades Gram Thatha Nagar Raksaha Samiti Act.
In Kerala flagship project of Kerala Janamaithri
Suraksha Project is a three tier structure with the beat and community police
officer at the bottom. The beat officer has to personally now at least one member
of every household in his beat and constantly interacts with service providers
in the area like postmen, linemen, milkmen, gas agencies to get information
about the area.
In Punjab, too, Community Policing Resource
Centres – CPRCs have been formed with local members but they are confined to
women counseling cells only, though with successive rates.
Frankly speaking, the joint ventures by the police
in partnership with the community that shares common goals and operations can
lead to community involvement, resource augmentation, expertise sharing and
improved results.
Moreover, the police can be positioned in such a
way that helps to increase safety working in partnership with groups to enhance
safety rather than an organization that provides safety solely. There is need to identify the required
linkages to strengthen the measures through community participation.
The measures proposed above would not only help
the flow of human intelligence from community to the security forces for more
alert and vigilant community willing to aid and inform police forces.
Still it is the right time for the police to
switch over to community policing in real sense following the neighbourhood
countries by developing the community as a plus point for gathering and sharing
intelligence to prevent terror strikes.
With these arrangements, this would unambiguously
turn the community in India from being defenseless to priceless supporter in
the fight against terror.
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