Cops as Exemplars

Slum children and senior citizens have been given a new direction in life by novel Kolkata Police projects.

Payal Khawaria, 5, goes to Kolkata’s Tollygunge police station every morning. Quite like Zahir Ahmed, 20, who goes to the Karaya thana thrice a week. Or Tarun Tapan Ghosh, 69, who drops by Ballygunge thana regularly. Payal, Zahir or Tarun are no offenders ordered by courts to report to these police stations regularly, but normal, law-abiding people. And Kolkata’s 48 police stations aren’t also places that only lodge complaints and criminals; they double up as spaces where destitute children study, adolescents get a grounding in computers, footballers congregate to organise tournaments, and lonesome senior citizens drop by to chat with the men in uniform! All part of a novel community policing agenda that started 14 years ago to make the force a people-friendly one, and make policing pro-active. As for the men in white (the force’s proud uniform) themselves, hunting criminals is not their only work—they happily oversee the free schools and computer training, visit senior citizens in their neighbourhoods and take them out for movies, organise the annual football tourney that’s won a place in the Limca Book of Records, receive school children on a familiarisation trip to the thanas, and more.

It’s truly hard to imagine a police station that reverberates to the happy cacophony of nursery rhymes. But this is exactly what happens at police stations across this city. More than 2,800 street and slum children who’d never have dreamt of going to school are happily learning the alphabet at these police stations. “Street and slum children get easily recruited into petty crime. The best way to pre-empt this is to bring them into the mainstream. Hence, we started ‘Nabadisha’ (which roughly translates into ‘new direction’) for such children, in association with NGOs and corporate houses that provide funds, teaching and learning materials and the teachers, while we provide the infrastructure,” Kolkata Police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti tells Open. “After getting their basic education, our students join mainstream schools. But they attend classes regularly here to supplement what they learn in school,” says Elora Das of Hope Foundation, an NGO that runs the Nabadisha programme at the Tollygunge police station.

Take Pinki Rajbhar, 15, a class IX student at the Alipore Taksal Vidyapith who also attends classes at the Taratala thana’s Nabadisha. “She dropped out of a formal school three years ago while studying in class VIII due to monetary problems. We brought her here, coached her and got her admitted to the school she studies in now,” said Chhanda Sengupta, one of the teachers at Taratala’s Nabadisha that’s run by Vikramshila Education Society. Rajesh Kautoniay, 9, lives with his five brothers and mother on a pavement off Southern Avenue in south Kolkata. Rajesh and his brothers were doomed to a life of penury and hard labour, till Nabadisha offered them a ray of hope. “I want to study hard and become an engineer,” says this Class 1 student of Bharatiya Hindi High School.

Apart from regular classes, these kids get a free health check-up and medicines every month, besides being taken out on entertainment and educational tours around the city. Nabadisha’s effect has reached a tangible level. “Juvenile delinquency has fallen drastically in Kolkata in recent years,” says Chakrabarti, the city police chief.

Many officers at the various police stations have even taken it upon themselves to teach the kids. Like Inspector Arumoy Mukherjee, the officer-in-charge at Taratala thana. “I can teach mathematics very well, and whenever I’m free, I take classes here,” says Mukherjee. A sports enthusiast, this police officer also motivates the para (locality) football teams in Taratala, attending to their problems and ensuring that they put in their best at the Kolkata Police Friendship Cup—an annual football jamboree that witnessed participation by 519 teams in 577 matches played for over two months at 27 venues across the city last year, making it the biggest football tournament in the country and perhaps even the world! This earned the tourney an entry into the Limca Book of Records. “This tournament, started in 1997 when about 100 teams participated, has helped us reach out to and befriend the youth. As a result, information gathering and policing has received a tremendous boost,” the police commissioner says. Meanwhile, Mukherjee’s efforts bore fruit when a team he had enthused—the Taratolla Boys’ Club—lifted the coveted trophy last year. “I was always wary of cops and kept a distance. But thanks to this tournament, I’ve shed my inhibitions and am very comfortable coming here regularly and discussing my problems, as well as issues affecting our locality, with the officers here,” says team striker Jeet Das, lounging at ease inside the thana. “This is precisely what we wanted to achieve through these community policing initiatives—getting closer to the people and making them shed their inhibitions about the police so that they can interact with us freely and frankly,” says Kolkata Police Special Commissioner Banibrata Basu.

Then, there’s ‘Kiran’ (ray of light), a computer-training programme for underprivileged children, especially from minority communities, which was launched in 2008 in association with NGOs and corporate houses. “This programme is running in five police stations and will be gradually expanded,” says Inspector Soven Banerjee, who oversees the force’s ‘Community policing wing’. Forty students—20 boys and 20 girls—with matriculation as the minimum qualification attend classes for three hours thrice a week at each of the five police stations. Zarir Ahmed, a second year commerce undergraduate, learns computers at Karaya Police station. “This will definitely help us in getting jobs. The certificate that we’ll get will be priceless,” he gushes. “We’re planning to impart soft skills to help them land good jobs,” adds Karaya officer-in-charge Inspector Aloke Ghosh.

But it’s not just kids and youngsters praising the force. Purnendu Lahiri, a retired engineer who stays with his wife Trishna at a chic apartment in the tony Ballygunge Circular Road area, was pleasantly surprised to get a call from an officer of the Ballygunge thana one morning some weeks ago wishing him a happy birthday. “I was touched by the gesture. It was my 76th birthday. All my friends have passed away and there are so few who remember the day now,” he tells Open. The Lahiris are among the thousand odd senior citizens registered under Kolkata Police’s ‘Pranam’ project. “This project is for the safety, security and welfare of elderly people who live alone. We have a 24×7 helpline and a full-fledged office at the Ballygunge thana. All police stations have a dedicated 3-member liaison team headed by an assistant sub-inspector to attend to senior citizens residing in the areas under their jurisdiction,” explains Inspector Banerjee. “We have a detailed database of all senior citizens registered with us. We have tie-ups with 31 reputed hospitals for initial cashless treatment and discounted rates for the elderly. We provide safety tips to members, and our officers visit them regularly. We attend to medical and other emergencies, organise movie shows, picnics, cultural programmes and outings for them. Health check-ups are held twice a month. We even help them with legal and other matters like booking LPG cylinders or getting their phones repaired,” informs Sukla Taraphder, the administrator of Pranam’s office at Ballygunge thana. Pradip Majumder, the ASI who heads the Pranam liaison team at Ballygunge thana and visits four to five Pranam members every day, says he’s overwhelmed by the affection they shower on him.

Then there’s ‘Sampark’, designed to familiarise kids, especially from poorer families, with the functioning of the police force. “These community policing programmes have made a huge difference. We get information, help and cooperation from local people very easily. The barrier between people and police has broken down completely, and the people in my area feel very comfortable coming here,” Karaya’s Ghosh says.

Thanks to all these, Kolkata Police today commands more respect and draws more support from Kolkatans. People, especially the poor and relatively vulnerable, no longer harbour fear, antipathy or even apathy towards the city’s police force. The police are also finding it easier to carry out their tasks. In a city where many institutions are decaying, Kolkata Police is perhaps that rare exception.

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