'Cops patrolling on foot will curb crimes better'

BENGALURU: To protect lone pedestrians and riders from mugging and other attacks in the dead of night, security experts have suggested that police foot patrolling be restarted across the city, alongside motorised patrolling which has been in vogue over the last few years.

The suggestion comes at a time when many have lost jobs amid the Covid pandemic, and there is an understanding that a degree of desperation among the youth who have been laid off could have led to a rise in crime, and that the police need to be better prepared to prevent it by improving methods of on-ground patrolling.

In police foot patrol, the constabulary kept vigil in their respective areas in pairs, with one of them carrying a rifle. The system was stopped a few years ago in preference for two-wheeler Cheetah and four-wheeler Hoysala patrols. 

Foot patrolling which was the trend in the 1980s and 90s in Bengaluru had become quite popular among citizens as the presence of the police provided a higher degree of security to them. In many cases, the citizens offered food and water to the patrolling policemen and a sense of bonding had emerged between the constabulary and the citizens, according to several residents familiar with the patrolling then.

Sangram Singh, a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police, told The New Indian Express, “Robberies and thieveries, besides petty crimes and chain-snatching, increase in the absence of foot patrolling. Patrolling has become sophisticated and miscreants have no fear of committing any type of crime.”

Singh said foot patrolling could help control crimes. Many policemen involved in Cheetah and Hoysala patrols tend to waste time while patrolling, he pointed out.

“An ASI and a constable have to be deployed for foot patrolling every day instead of going on bikes. The police commissioner has to consider this very important and introduce it again,” he said. 

Experts said that foot patrolling needs to be reintroduced especially in areas with higher residential presence, like Jalahalli, Rajajinagar or Malleswaram, which tend to attract more criminals because of higher mobility of the vulnerable population on roads — especially women and elders.

“Foot patrolling drills in some level of fear and deterrence among criminals targeting lone walkers at night,” a senior police official said.

​BB Ashok Kumar, a retired ACP, felt, “Miscreants get easily alerted when policemen on Hoysala or Cheetah patrol move around with siren. There is a higher chance of them escaping on hearing sirens or hooters.”