Mock drill exposes lukewarm response of cops to public calls

Coimbatore: A mock drill on Saturday brought to light the promptness with which the police spring into action in response to the phone calls from the general public. Only two of the five police stations, which were put to test, responded quickly to the calls.

Additional superintendent of police (prohibition enforcement wing) Chandramohan, pretending to be a common man, made phone calls to the land line numbers of Mettupalayam, Thondamuthur, Sulur, Pollachi East and Kottur police stations from different mobile numbers and alerted them about major accidents, burglaries and gambling took place in their limits. Only cops from Pollachi East and Kottur responded immediately, while the calls hardly evoked any response from the remaining police stations.

"A police sub-inspector from Pollachi East station and cops from Kottur police station will be rewarded for their immediate response to the phone calls. Cops from Mettupalayam, Sulur and Thondamuthur were severely warned for their inaction. Mock drills of this kind would make the police personnel attached to the rural police stations to respond to the phone calls from the public," said Pa Moorthy, district superintendent of police.

Last week, inspector general of police (west zone) A Pari had held meeting with SPs of eight districts in Erode and instructed them to conduct a mock drill to know how police personnel responded to the phone calls from the public to the police stations.

On Saturday, Pa Moorthy conducted a meeting with all the deputy superintendents of police and inspectors of police and asked them to handover the mobile phones to DPO staff for a while.

ADSP Chandramohan subsequently called on the land line number of Mettupalayam police station and introduced himself as a local resident. He told them that his relative girl had eloped by a man in Mettupalayam and he wanted to lodge a complaint to trace them. The police constable, who attended to call, asked him to appear before the police station in person to lodge the complaint. But the ADSP said he was a diabetic patient and could not appear in person. The constable did not respond well to this.

The ADSP informed about gambling to the Thondamuthur police station and reported a major accident to the Sulur police station. A woman constable from Sulur attended the phone call but did not respond.

The police officer informed about a burglary at Pollachi east police station limits. Immediately a sub-inspector of police rushed to the spot and contacted the phone number, saying no such incident had taken place. Kottur police also responded immediately after receiving a phone call saying a woman was kidnapped and lodged in a house.