NAGPUR: Four students of Std VII have written a secret letter to the superintendent of police (SP), Amravati rural, Hari Balaji, complaining against a politically influenced teacher making undue advances towards them for last one year. Immediately, action was initiated and FIR was lodged against the teacher concerned.
The students had dropped the letter in a complaint box near their school. The box was installed there as part of an awareness initiative started by Balaji, an alumni of Madurai Medical College.
The SP had formulated an audio-visual system, now hailed as ‘Amravati pattern’ by state police headquarters, where he planned to take awareness-creating short films related to crime against children and girls, to schools. It would be followed by installation of complaint boxes and banners displaying WhatsApp number for sending secret complaints to be monitored by Balaji himself.
Currently, the films are screened and awareness done through online meeting softwares. In post-pandemic phase, physical activities would be held with team visiting the schools.
Balaji, who had served four years at Chennai Superspecialty Hospital before getting selected as an IPS officer in 2013, has also formed a seven-member team for coordinating the awareness programmes and collecting the complaints. This entire system of creating awareness has been labelled as ‘Amravati pattern’ and asked to be replicated across the state.
Balaji, whose name is associated with the country’s most successful operations against the Maoists at Kasnasoor and Nainer in Gadchiroli where 40 cadres were neutralized in 2018, earning him accolades as Addl SP (operations), has been asked to furnish the awareness creating short films on various issues.
Around 300 complaint boxes have been kept across the district near schools and at market places within the limits of 31 police stations of Amravati rural district with a banner attracting grievances from commoners especially women and girls. The campaign started from end of January this year with an aim to reach more than an one lakh students and install at least 1,000 complaint boxes but only 20,000 could be reached with pandemic playing the spoilsports.
Balaji, who is now working on a medical project, said the objective was to create awareness about what constitutes a crime and commoners should feel encouraged to approach police station for lodging a complaint. “We have tried to create an alternative complaint system encouraging commoners to report crimes and get speedy justice,” said Balaji.
The SP said he has made short films on various issues pertaining to child sexual abuse and soon make many more on different other topics including laws related pre-natal diagnostic acts and medical termination of pregnancy. “Not a single amount was spent on this project. The films were conceptualized and written by the team under SDPO and were shot, edited and put together by the cyber cell,” said Balaji.
“We are approaching the schools and expecting them to write them back with consent. This audio-visual awareness programmes would take around once in every 20 days,” he said.
“The students are given some questionnaire on the subject of the films even before they are screened to gauge their understanding. In the pre-tests taken on the topic, they would score around 55% but later after screening, the same students would score 80-90%,” said Balaji.
The SP also said anti-child abuse awareness programmes are targeted for primary school students while topics like abortion and diagnostic laws would be for secondary school level.