Delhi Police to hold meetings every Saturday for speedy redressal of public grievances

Delhi Police on Saturday organised ‘Jan Sunwai’ meetings across police stations in the city. Police said the public hearing meetings will be conducted by the area’s Assistant Commissioner of Police to ensure speedy redressal of public grievances.

Delhi Police Commissioner Balaji Srivastava held an ‘agenda meeting’ earlier this week after he was given the additional charge of Commissioner on Wednesday. In the meeting, Srivastava stressed on curbing street crimes, ensuring women’s safety and a direct public interface to deal with grievance redressal.

On his directions, police will now conduct ‘Jan Sunwai’ meetings every Saturday.

While most of the complaints, DD entries and FIRs are now made online due to the pandemic, police have now started the meetings to ensure more complaints are resolved sooner.

A Delhi Police spokesperson said, “Our aim is to bring down the crime rate and up the conviction rate. Also, many people were being left out and were unable to track their complaints or communicate with police personnel due to the lockdown and Covid norms. We have now decided to hold direct meetings at ACPs offices in areas so people can come and get help easily”

Police posted posters for the meetings at each police station. They said though the meetings are done with groups, everyone follows social distancing norms and seating arrangements are made as per the norms.

In the Northeast district, the meetings were held at every police sub-division office, where two or more officers attended to complainants. A senior police officer said, “We received several new complaints about thefts and cheating. Some people had also come to ask us about their cases and court proceedings. We guided them about the procedure.”

In Outer Delhi, each sub-division witnessed a total of 10-15 new complaints on the first day of the meeting between 4 and 6 pm.

DCP (Shahdara) R Sathiyasundaram said. “Our first Jan Sunwai was very successful. A total of 165 complaints were heard, and of these, 140 were resolved in two hours.” In Dwarka, 231 complaints were made on Saturday.

Police said many “elderly persons” attended the meetings to lodge their complaints and understand their case’s details. “Many of these complainants live alone and don’t get updates about their case. Many old people came to us and told us about their cases,” said an officer.

The meetings were held in each district such as East, New Delhi, Central, North and South Delhi. Police said everyone was advised to wear gloves and masks, and sanitiser stations were put up to make sure nobody gets infected. Seats were placed at a distance and at many sub-divisions, glass or plastic panels were placed between officers and the public for safety.