Tag: mumbai police

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Achieve

Mumbai police beat Pune cops

…in a game of rugby. Greater Mumbai Police and Maharashtra State Police bagged the top honours in Bombay Cup 2015.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It was a keenly contested match between the police forces. In the end, Greater Mumbai Police and Maharashtra State Police defeated Pune Police and Mumbai Magicians by 27-7 and 23 -13  respectively, in the first round of the ‘Bombay Cup 2015’, WIRFU’s premier 15-a-side Rugby Championship held at Bombay Gymkhana grounds.

A total of 6 teams across the state participated in the championship. The participant teams are Bombay Gymkhana, Maharashtra state Police (MSP), Pune Police, Pune District Rugby Team, Greater Mumbai Police (GMP) and Mumbai Magicians Rugby team.

The opening game between Greater Mumbai Police and Pune Police was keenly contested. Pune Police’s Sagar Babare scored the first try and secured the conversions in the first 25 minutes and built pressure on Greater Mumbai Police in the first half of the game. At the end of the first half, GMP Captain Vitthal Pawar scored the try and led the concluding score to 7 – 5.

But, in the second half, GMP came back very aggressively. Beginning of the second half, Sangappa Shinge scored the second try for GMP. And Rajaram Mote, Sanket Dhumal and Vipul Mokal continued the momentum by scoring one Try each for GMP. Pradeep Londhe successfully booted the last conversion. And the final score was 27-7.

The second game between Maharashtra State Police and Mumbai Magicians was tightly contested. The Mumbai Magicians Rugby team started off strong. In the first 15 minutes, the Magicians’ Ajinkya scored the first try and 10 minutes later Shankar Rathod scored the second try. At the end of the first half, Pappu Todkar scored the try for MSP and Sunil Chauhan booted the penalty conversion  for Magicians at the led the concluding score to 13-5.

In the second half of the game Mumbai Magicians couldn’t hold the opponent’s attack. Maharashtra Police came back and thrashed the Magicians defence. In the second half Sandeep Kamble scored in the 50th minute and two minutes later, Pankaj Khopde scored another try for MSP and Pappu Todakar successfully booted the conversion. In the last phase of the game, MSP Skipper Ranjit Jambhale sneaked out from opponent winger and scored the last try. In the second half, MSP did not let Mumbai Magicians score single try against them. The final score was 23-13.

Categories
Deal with it

Hurrah for separate Investigation Units in police stations

Praja Foundation reviews the implications of the new order which stipulates that all police stations will have one Investiation Unit.
by Praja Foundation, Mumbai

Congratulations to Mr Sanjeev Dayal, Maharashtra’s Director General of Police for the long awaited announcement to separate Investigation Units (IUs) from law and order police. The Standing Order No. 24 of 2015, which follows the Supreme Court directive, means that IU officers and constables will not be assigned to duties under any other category of investigation and will be exempt from extraction for law and order duties as well.

The order stipulates that all the police stations and district police will have at least one IU; numbers will increase depending on the average number of serious cases registered over three years. According to Dayal’s order, which will come into effect on July 1, 2015, each IU will investigate a maximum 15 cases a year. According to the Director General’s order officers in charge of the investigation wing will supervise the investigating as well as pairavi units, who follow up on the cases being tried in court. The order also mentions that that women police officers and constables will aid IUs. There is a stipulation that Mumbai needs 691 personnel for investigation, pairavi and women units; and these will be chosen from already existing personnel in the police force. There are also provisions for a fixed tenure for IUs with fully equipped legal, forensic, scientific and technological resources.

Praja has been consistently taking up the issue of separation of investigation and law and order personnel in its White Papers on the issue Law and Order and Policing in Mumbai. According to Nitai Mehta, Managing Trustee, Praja Foundation, “One of the urgent steps to address the issue of lack of IUs has been laid out by the Supreme Court directives on Police Reform in the Prakash Singh case of 2006, i.e. the separation of investigation from law and order. According to experts, this does not even require a legislative intervention. Even the office of the Police Commissioner or the Home Minister of the State has the power to introduce this much-needed change in the policing policy of the city, and perhaps the state as well.”

The gap between sanctioned and available IOs (Investigating Officers) needs to be bridged; a total of 4,301 IOs are sanctioned, but only 2,904 are working, a gap of 32 per cent! Although this gap has reduced from 50 per cent in 2013; total of 1,397 officers are still needed to bridge the gap completely. Due to this gap, investigations have not been conducted in an organised manner. Mhaske contends, “A study of acquitted cases shows that the chief reason for acquittal has been ‘lack of evidence’. This, in turn, showcases the performance of the IO, the public prosecutor and the lack of coordination between the two.”

Praja’s crime White Papers also present some startling data regarding conviction rates in criminal cases. Milind Mhaske, Project Director, Praja Foundation says, “Conviction rates in Class II serious offences (cases involving bodily harm, murder, rape, grievous hurt, kidnapping, abduction etc.) has been an abysmal 8 per cent in 2013 – 92 per cent of those charge-sheeted have got away scot-free! Overall, the conviction rate remains at a low 22 per cent”. To maintain law and order in the city, it is imperative that these figures rise.

Low conviction rates lead to thriving crime and, consequently, an unsafe city. These figures highlight the lack of IOs in the city. Mehta says, “Understaffing and multiplicity of tasks in the Mumbai Police Force is compromising investigation and there by leading to low conviction rates. A fully manned force will mean that the officers handling criminal cases will focus solely on these investigations, rather than being called on to man roadblocks and performing bandobast duties. Consequently, cases that make their way to the courts will be watertight and there will be an assurance that the guilty will be convicted”.

(Picture courtesy www.mahapolice.gov.in. Image is used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Big story

Understaffed Mumbai Police not able to complete investigations: Survey

But overall, Mumbai residents have faith in the policing systems and most use the police helpline numbers to report crimes.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

All is not lost when it comes to dealing with crime in Mumbai – it seems that while crimes against women and children are on the rise, citizens’ awareness about reporting crimes has also gone up. However, with Mumbaikars not entirely favourably disposed towards the Mumbai Police when it comes to solving crimes, there is a large majority of people in the city that feels insecure about living in Mumbai.

As per a survey commissioned to Hansa Research by city-based citizen empowerment organisation Praja Foundation, 29 per cent of respondents from South Central Mumbai feel unsafe in Mumbai. This region also felt most insecure about the safety of women, senior citizens and children (27 per cent) and travelling from one place to another in the city (30 per cent). The survey included responses from 24,694 households in all of Mumbai.

Mumbai policeState of policing in Mumbai

However, the survey found a large number of respondents having faith in the Mumbai Police’s investigations. “About 70 per cent respondents said they were satisfied with police’s response to reported crimes,” the survey reads. “Overall, 11 per cent respondents did not report a crime because they did not have faith in the police.”

Higher rates of reporting crimes – whether witnessed or personally experienced – have revealed a grim picture: there has been a sharp increase in the numbers of rapes and molestations in Mumbai, over the past two years. “In the last two years, 2011-2012 and 2012-21013, rapes have gone up by 57 per cent (294 cases) and molestation cases have gone up by 43 per cent (793 cases),” the survey says. Correspondingly, the conviction rate has gone down to 7 per cent in 2012 from 10 per cent in 2011.

The lack of investigations is not merely down to lack of intent, however – the Mumbai Police force continues to be understaffed and overworked, thus hampering quality of investigation. “As of July 2013, Mumbai Police has a strength of 35,761 officers out of the sanctioned 41,398. The police control room is short by 140 officers. The resultant gap [in manpower] severely affects not only the quality of investigations but also causes delay in completing investigation,” the survey finds.

For the entire survey and past white papers from Praja, visit www.praja.org.

(Pictures courtesy www.thehindu.com, www.outlookindia.com)

Categories
Learn

Three suicides happen every day in Mumbai

Statistics for the country’s financial capital are grim, with most suicides found to occur in the 18-45 years age group.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Actress Jiah Khan killed herself at her home on Sunday. She was 25.Actress Jiah Khan (see pic on left) committed suicide at her Juhu home late on Sunday evening. The country woke up to the news of her shocking death, even as the inevitable question cropped up yet again – what drives somebody so young to suicide?

There were three suicides in Mumbai in the last two weeks, all of them publicised in the news. However, what is not known widely is that the malaise runs quite deep – as per data sourced from a comprehensive suicide watch study released for India by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for 2006-2007, police statistics said that three lives were lost per day in Mumbai due to suicide. As against this, Navi Mumbai registered two deaths by suicide per week.

All over the country, as per statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a suicide takes place somewhere in the country every five minutes. “Seven times that number attempt to take their lives and as for those who feel desperate and unable to cope, the number is mind boggling. More suicides occur between (the ages) 18 and 45 – in other words, in the most productive age group of our society,” the report says.

What is it about Mumbai that is claiming more lives by suicide than other factors such as accidents and disease?

The Mumbai conundrum

self mutilationDr Harish Shetty, renowned city-based psychiatrist, said in a newspaper interview recently, “In a city like Mumbai, people suffer from loneliness. We are getting at least eight people with suicidal thoughts. You have to be alert in case somebody you know gets angry on little matters, or uses words like ‘I am not worth it’ or ‘My life is finished’ every time he or she is under stress.”

A major point to ponder for our city is that with our fast-paced lives, there is constant competition to get ahead and stay ahead. “In this city, you are constantly racing against the clock to finish projects, earn more, get a better life. Rising inflation, growing peer competition, not as much opportunity to succeed as one would like…all of these begin to prey on the mind and cause a tremendous amount of stress,” says Dr Varsha Thakker, a private practitioner. “While most people are able to channel their frustrations into positive outlets, there are some who may not be able to cope. This class of people may not even acknowledge that there is a problem, that they may need help.” She adds that often, with an existing burden of problems, it sometimes takes just a little trigger to set a person on the path to suicide. “We hear of children killing themselves after a petty dispute with their parents. It may seem like a small issue to anyone else, but it is possible that that child was carrying a huge amount of stress all along, and one harsh word probably pushed him over the edge,” she says.

Suicides are not rampant only among students and young professionals in the city, but among the city’s police force as well. A recent The Times of India report says that there were 168ask for help  suicides in the Mumbai police force in the years 2002 to 2012. “Let’s face it – this is a tough city to live in, and the pressures of daily life are immense,” says Dr Shetty. “However, people must seek help if they are depressed often or find themselves increasingly thinking of ending it all.”

Some statistics to ponder:

– Every 3 seconds, a person in India attempts to die.
– Suicide is one of the top three causes of death among the young in the age group of 15-35 years.
– About 1 lakh people die by suicide in India every year.
– 3 people in a day in Mumbai commit suicide.
– A study says 72 per cent writers, 42 per cent artists, 41 per cent politicians, 36 per cent intellectuals, 35 per cent musicians and 33 per cent scientists are prone to stress-related disorders.
– Suicide estimates suggest fatalities worldwide could rise to 1.5 million by 2020.

(Statistics courtesy AASRA, the helpline for the distressed. Pictures courtesy www.india-forums.com, suicidal-lovez.blogspot.com, celiacdisease.about.com, www.sailorspouse.com)

Categories
Event

Skits for self defence…

…at Bhaidas Hall today, as the Mumbai Police continue its sensitisation programmes to curb increasing numbers of crimes against women.

Girl students from across the city are expected to attend a sensitisation programme organised by the Mumbai Police, to raise awareness about increasing crimes against women in the ciyt, as also how can defend themselves in times of an assault. The programme takes place today at Juhu’s Bhaidas Hall and will be a four-hour programme which will also see attendance from members of several Women Vigilance Cells in the city.

Interestingly, three skits are to be performed at the programme, organised by students of Mithibai College, police officers and by professional stage artists under the direction of renowned theatre veteran Makrand Deshpande.

Additionally, Bollywood actors Shabana Azmi and Rani Mukerji are expected to address the audience, as also State Home Minister RR Patil, Mumbai University Vice Chancellor Dr Rajan Velukar, and Mumbai Police Commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh.

(Picture used for representational purpose only) 

Categories
Big story

Cops will watch the skies on R-Day

No paragliders or other micro-aircraft can fly near or above Shivaji Park till noon on Saturday, Republic Day, this year. Anyone breaking this rule will be arrested.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

If all of us watch the skies, who will watch the land and the seas? Never mind that, the Mumbai Police seem to be saying. As per a directive issued from the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) KG Patil, a “breach of peace” is expected by terrorist or antisocial elements from the skies above the Shivaji Park (Dadar) area on Saturday, January 26, 2013.

Accordingly, no paragliders or remote controlled microlight aircraft will be allowed to fly in the jurisdiction of Mahim, Shivaji Park, Dadar and Worli police stations on that day.

An order issued today from Patil’s office reads, “On Republic Day 26/01/2013 at Shivaji Park, Dadar areas (sic) VIP, Army, Navy and Air Force officers, Consuls and citizens in large numbers come together for celebrating Republic Day, it is necessary that some checks should be put on activities around Shivaji Park area in Dadar, Mumbai, so that terrorist/anti-social elements may not attack through paragliders , remote controlled microlight aircraft (and) that immediate action is necessary for prevention of the same.”

This order is to remain in force from 6 am to noon of January 26, 2013.

(Picture courtesy thehindu.com)

 

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