Joshwa D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru
Mangaluru, Dec 28: Leaving on a vacation or pilgrimage but worried about your house getting burgled in your absence? Dakshina Kannada and Mangaluru city police are here to help you.
'Gruha Suraksha', a new initiative by Dakshina Kannada district superintendent of police (SP) Bhushan G Borase to guard citizens' houses and belongings in their absence has received tremendous response, with even non-resident Indians (NRIs) seeking help from the district police and the city police commissionerate to watch their houses in their native towns. In just one week, nearly 100 people have sought this service.
A person seeking this service from the district police has to send a request with house address, photographs of the house, GPS coordinates and duration of absence to the police control room WhatsApp number 9480805300. Once the request is received, the police will monitor the person's house everyday till the latter's return. More importance is given to night patrolling.
Speaking to daijiworld, the SP Bhushan Borase said that so far, the district control room has recieved 98 requests including both from within the city commissionerate and the district jurisdiction since December 21, the day of the launch.
"We have received 42 requests within the city police commissionerate and 29 from within the district police jurisdiction requesting to monitor their houses. This apart, we have received 16 requests from people who are residing outside the district. Among them four are from Bengaluru city, 8 from Udupi, one each from Hassan, Chikkamagaluru, Kodagu and Raichur. We have also received ten requests from outside the country namely six from Saudi Arabia, one each from Sharjah, San Francisco, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait. We have one request from Maharashtra as well," the SP said.
Explaining the motive behind launching the service, he said, "Consider there are 2,000 houses in a colony and ten families are going on a vacation leaving their houses vacant. Protection of those ten houses is our concern, so we need not worry about the remaining 1,990 houses. To serve this purpose we have started this service. Whenever we receive a request along with the address and GPS coordinates of the house, we will keep a continuous watch. This will have two advantages - no one will dare to come anywhere close to the house we are watching, and if in case someone has already broken in and committing a theft, we can catch the culprit red-handed.
"During interrogation of theft accused in various cases, we found that the culprits make rounds of the locality in the guise of salesmen and vendors and take note of a vacant house when they receive no response from that house. Secondly, they notice the presence of fallen leaves and uncollected milk and unattended letters, newspapers etc and burgle the house in the wee hours from 2 to 5 am," the SP explained.
How to avail the service
Step one: Add Dakshina Kannada district police control room number 9480805300 to your contacts.
Step two: Switch on the GPS in your smartphone.
Step three: Send the GPS coordinates of the house to the above number along with the complete address of the house and the number of days the house would be locked. Along with the message, you must also send photographs of your house.
The district police control room, after receiving the above information, will forward the same to the police station concerned. The house is added to the daily monitoring list in the patrol vehicles.
To help every citizen, the district police department and the city police commissionerate have also brought out a video demonstrating the simple procedure.
The SP also shared a snapshot of a WhatsApp conversation in which a person who availed the service, thanked the police after returning to his house from a tour.
Appreciating the initiative, senior citizen E P Cutinho said that this service has enhanced people's trust in the police department. "Earlier, did not have a good opinion about police. This is a very good initiative. Such initiatives will help people trust the police more. Along with this, even the Mangaluru City Corporation must discharge its responsibility and provide better streetlights. They must introduce bright LED lights available at cheaper prices. This will not only reduce crimes but also reduce accidents during the night."
SP Bhushan, prior to introduction of the app-based service in the district, had also introduced a similar service in Mandya district during his tenure as SP and garnered wide appreciation.
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