Mumbai Bandh: How Twitter helped police in saving innocent lives under violent protest
, ET Bureau|
Jan 06, 2018, 08.20 AM IST
MUMBAI: The scale of Wednesday's Maharashtra Bandh caught the Mumbai Police off guard. "It came in like a meteorite on us," says Deven Bharti, Mumbai's Joint Commissioner of Police (Law & Order), two days after the state-wide shutdown was called off by Babasaheb Ambedkar's grandson and Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh leader Prakash Ambedkar. Yet, Mumbai Police was the only institution lauded for containing the situation once the crisis was over — unlike other areas in the state where protesters reported incidents of lathicharge from the police.
"If we wanted, we could have controlled the issue in five minutes with a lathi-charge. But we restrained ourselves because a lot of women and children were on the road. Saving lives was more important than saving property," Bharti tells ET.
A large part of the city's internetsavvy janta relied on Mumbai Police's twitter handle (@Mumbai-Police) to steer clear of rumours and get credible information on the extent and impact of the Bandh on the city. "It worked both ways.The citizens tweeted to us about the areas where protests had gotten violent and the nearest police vehicles were sent to these locations immediately," he said.
Managing the twitter account were eight constables under the supervision of a sub-inspector and the inspector in-charge of the Mumbai Police Web Cell— all working under one roof at the Mumbai Police Main Control Room in the Crawford Market area.
In addition to tweeting about the roads that were or weren't blocked during the Bandh, their job was to make sense of the stream of mentions pouring in on both @MumbaiPolice and @CPMumbaiPolice (official handle of the Commissioner of Mumbai Police DD Padsalgikar), engage with users to provide relevant information, and alert the control room on matters requiring immediate attention.
One such matter was reported from a residential society in Mumbai's Powai region where protesters had allegedly resorted to stone pelting. "One of our men got injured trying to contain the situation. The residents presented him and his colleagues with a bouquet yesterday," Bharti said.
Where there was praise, there was also criticism from Twitter users for delayed arrival, unpreparedness, or simply a no-show - something Bharti and his team chose to take in its stride. "It shows there are high expectations from us. We are a force of 50,000 policemen for a city that has more than 10 million people. We tried to minimise the damage to the best of our ability."
The citizens have the right to be angry, he feels, because they didn't foresee the Bandh. "But we don't discourage them for venting their anger out on us."
"If we wanted, we could have controlled the issue in five minutes with a lathi-charge. But we restrained ourselves because a lot of women and children were on the road. Saving lives was more important than saving property," Bharti tells ET.
A large part of the city's internetsavvy janta relied on Mumbai Police's twitter handle (@Mumbai-Police) to steer clear of rumours and get credible information on the extent and impact of the Bandh on the city. "It worked both ways.The citizens tweeted to us about the areas where protests had gotten violent and the nearest police vehicles were sent to these locations immediately," he said.
Managing the twitter account were eight constables under the supervision of a sub-inspector and the inspector in-charge of the Mumbai Police Web Cell— all working under one roof at the Mumbai Police Main Control Room in the Crawford Market area.
In addition to tweeting about the roads that were or weren't blocked during the Bandh, their job was to make sense of the stream of mentions pouring in on both @MumbaiPolice and @CPMumbaiPolice (official handle of the Commissioner of Mumbai Police DD Padsalgikar), engage with users to provide relevant information, and alert the control room on matters requiring immediate attention.
One such matter was reported from a residential society in Mumbai's Powai region where protesters had allegedly resorted to stone pelting. "One of our men got injured trying to contain the situation. The residents presented him and his colleagues with a bouquet yesterday," Bharti said.
Where there was praise, there was also criticism from Twitter users for delayed arrival, unpreparedness, or simply a no-show - something Bharti and his team chose to take in its stride. "It shows there are high expectations from us. We are a force of 50,000 policemen for a city that has more than 10 million people. We tried to minimise the damage to the best of our ability."
The citizens have the right to be angry, he feels, because they didn't foresee the Bandh. "But we don't discourage them for venting their anger out on us."
