Rattled by some recent incidents of crime victims posting their grievances on the social media and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s prompt response, the Odisha police have decided to use the social media to immediately respond to the distressed victims.
Sources said Director General of Police (DGP) KB Singh on Tuesday ordered all range IGs and DIGs and district Superintendents of Police to open Twitter and Facebook accounts for their ranges and districts.
The senior cops have been instructed to set up these accounts using their Closed User Group (CUG) phone numbers, official email ID of the districts and the ranges.
All the Twitter handles and Facebook accounts of all the police districts and range offices would be linked with the Twitter and Facebook account of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) and the DGP office, said the sources.
“The SPs have been directed to regularly follow the Twitter and Facebook pages of the Chief Minister and the police headquarters and re-tweet the action taken on the complaints lodged in the official accounts,” said Singh.
At present, the Twin City Commissionerate Police are already having a Twitter account since 2013.
It might be mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, a woman passenger in the New Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express had posted her molestation incident to her friends in the Facebook. Subsequently, her friends had twitted about her ordeal to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, who immediately ordered the railway authorities to nab the culprit. later, the accused was arrested at Tatanagar.
Similarly, last week a woman scribe had posted on Facebook the harassment by a male passenger in a moving bus. Immediately, the Chief Minister asked the Commissionerate police to nab the victims. Presently, a probe into the incident is on by the Cuttack DCP.