Need for police sensitisation and preventive policing

The rape incidents in Delhi NCR of Aastha Kunj Park, Swaroop Nagar and the moving sleeper bus are alarming and a telling tale of how policing and poor infrastructure has failed us and often the police and civic administrations are responsible. I am a practicing advocate at Supreme Court and a resident of Sector 45, Faridabad. By this piece, I wish to draw the Haryana DGP’s attention to the functioning of 112, that is women helpline and the CM of Haryana’s intervention in the pertinent administration lapses. 

Having had the experience of dialing 112 and police PCR directly on multiple occasions, I am sad to say that it’s nearly non-functional and discouraging. 

There are illegal jhuggis at the back of our society and it’s a serious law and order threat for the residents.  The accompanying picture conveys better than the words how even gated colonies are not safe because of nexus between local politicians, police and land mafia.  There’s no lighting on the road between our society and the jhuggis which are encroachment on the HUDA/HSVP land. These people deal with all the illegal things from cutting meat in open and selling without license to selling drugs to chain snatching to burning toxic waste to other 100 nuisance and public annoyance. 

Serious NDPS offences happen in this vicinity right under the nose of Sector 46 police chowki. 

They drink in open from the theka just at our back, and play very loud and obscene songs at any time of day and night. It’s so intimidating to walk or drive through this area as it has been virtually made an open ahaata on the Govt land. 

Few days back, I dialed 112 multiple times to stop this hooliganism, but it just prompted me to dial 8 and then disconnected. It happened a number of times. Point to be noted is forget “emergency service”, it doesn’t even work like a casual call.  

Then I dialed PCR which luckily went through. The cops were in Sector 9, Faridabad and asked me to share location on a different mobile number, though there’s a chowki barely 100 meters from us. 

After much coordination and calls they reached the location and told me that this is not their job and I must complain in writing to the police chowki. 
What could be their motive to say so? Why were they so reluctant to stop this? Why should a woman be asked to go to chowki to make complaint for a public nuisance of loud music and public drinking? Isn’t it a general law and order problem which can be resolved without a formal complaint asking a woman to be identified to the same people whom she is complaining against? 
When I insisted that they reach the kabadi’s jhuggi who regularly creates this nuisance and hooliganism just beside the theka, they asked me to come to the spot first and share my picture with them. When I said I don’t want to come to the jhuggis for obvious reasons, they said taking picture is a protocol to close the complaint. 

Then only I told them that I am an advocate and share the protocol guidelines with me. It’s only after this that they stopped intimidating me. Calling a woman to the spot and identifying her to the same people she is complaining against is chilling, intimidating and discouraging.  

There’s background to the intimidation and threat. Once in the past, some of the residents including me went to the jhuggis to tell them to remove the open unlicensed meat shops, stop rearing pigs for slaughtering and stop the loud music nuisance and public drinking. 

After few days when these jhuggi outlaws saw me standing in my balcony, they hurled filthy abuses at me. It’s apparent that it can be very dangerous to ask a woman to come to the spot and identify herself in front of the outlaws. Such offences and nuisance against general public shouldn’t require a woman to face the procedural harassment of making individual complaint in writing to the chowkiand putting her at risk of targeting as there’s nexus between the police, the encroachers and the area politicians. Else how’s it possible that such illegal activities and nuisance would be happening just under the nose of police chowki (Sector 46 police Chowki is barely 100 metres from these jhuggis and theka)? It’s because of this nexus that these encroachers have electricity, water supply and everything. 

Some time back only a horrifying incidence of chain snatching happened on this road at night at gunpoint. We feel unsafe walking or driving through this area in night. There’s no lighting on this road and it’s a regular sight to see drunkards fighting and abusing on this road.

Illegal vendors obstruct the passage. The blind spots like in our vicinity and nexus between police and outlaws, backed by local politicians have made this area a high-risk area for us. Section 270 defines public nuisance and police is enjoined with not just investigative powers but preventive powers too. Had the police patrolling been happening in this area, this public nuisance would have stopped and it wouldn’t become a high risk area.