The Police Disaster Relief Control Room set up in Police headquarters, where incessant calls pour in from across the nation, are received patiently with full of concern and anxiety by Police personnel.
On Tuesday alone the control room received more than 2,000 calls from different States, including Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
The callers wanted to ascertain the condition of their kin stranded at disaster
affected areas and pleaded for extending help to them. As the phone rings, the constable on duty takes up the call, the caller pleads for help and expresses his concern for his kin stranded at the Kedarnath temple. He also tries to know the progress of rescue operation.
The caller shot off a query if the rescue operation was started and some stranded persons were air lifted to safer places. Constable Neeraj Gania tells him that rescue operation is in progress and around 500 pilgrims have been shifted to safer places, including Phata, from the Kedarnath temple.
No sooner does he finish the call, another call follows. He attends and repeats the same information in a flow. While he is busy answering the query, another phone in the control room rings. He requests sub inspector Dharampal Singh to take up the call and answer the query. Almost, every police personnel deployed at the control room is receiving similar calls.
The constable, soon after finishing the call, attends another call that is from West Bengal. The person requests him for extending help to one of his kin stranded at a location in Rudraprayag. Gania tells him to be patient as the rescue operation is undergoing and soon they would get relief.
In the meantime, the
control room in-charge Superintendent of Police (State Crime Records Bureau) Nilesh Anand Bharne directs the constable to compile the data of police personnel posted in different locations in disaster-affected areas of Kedarnath in Rudraprayag and Badrinath in Chamoli district.
The team compiles the data and is continuously taking up calls. SP Barne's mobile is also in action. He calls up one after another the police chiefs of the affected districts to take stock of the ongoing rescue operation and briefs the senior officers from his other mobile that functions like a call centre.
In the meantime, additional superintendent of police (ASP) Pradeep Rai enters the control room, he asks him to put all the received information from affected areas on police website. Rai says, "Yes sir, most of the information has been uploaded on the website. Information is being updated regularly on it."
ASP Shweta Chaube makes an entry in the control room. Bharne asks her to ensure the deployment of PAC personnel deployed in rescue operations. As he finishes conversation, a senior officer calls him up to take the update. Bharne updates him and proceeds to take up another call from his ringing mobile. While the disaster affected people and their families suffer from
hardships and anxiety, personnel of the Uttarakhand police, especially the junior staff are working hard to bring them succor in the form of information about the whereabouts of their kith and kin.