Bangalore, Nov 7, 2013, DHNS: The unprecedented migration of people to the cities had brought urban policing to the centrestage, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Thursday.
The population explosion in the cities and the rapid urbanisation means that the police have to cope with increasing crime rates and adapt themselves to combat issues like cyber crime, in which Bangalore has been ranked first, the chief minister said.
He was speaking after inaugurating the two-day second All India Conference of Police Commissioners here on Thursday. The meet is organised by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), New Delhi, and hosted by the Bangalore City Police Commissionerate. The City Commissionerate is celebrating its golden jubilee this year.
Siddaramaiah said that the police was the most visible arm of the administration and that it should evolve itself into a device of social welfare and justice. He said the police should work towards debunking the notion that they work only for an elite minority.
Rajan Gupta, director general of BPR&D, said that the institute was ready to bear all costs of training commandos if the State were to set up an elite commando force like Force 1, a counter-terrorism squad on the lines of the National Security Guards, constituted by the Maharashtra government.
Home Minister K J George thanked the institute for the offer and said that the government would hold talks with it on the matter. He said that the government was prepared to provide all monetary support and land on the outskirts of the City for the Centre to set up the All India Traffic Management Centre.
Gupta said that presently, there were 49 commissionerates in 12 states. He said that Padmanabhaiah, former union home secretary, had submitted a report in 2000, in which he had recommended the setting up of commissionerates in all urban centres with a population above 10 lakh.
He said that BPR&D had invited senior officials from nine large states where commissionerates were yet to be established for an exposure to its functioning. Gupta said that with rapid urbanisation, commissionerates were the preferred structure of policing. Studies had shown that human rights violations had come down after commissionerates were established.
The conference will have sessions on measures to ensure safety of women, police-prison interface, ideal traffic management system, training requirements for city police and mega city policing – innovative techniques.
The not-so-encouraging fact of the conference is that not all police commissioners from across the country are attending it. Sources said the attendance was very low and the police commissioner of no major metro is attending.
