First in India: TS Police to Take Complaints on Facebook

In a first of its kind initiative in the country, the Telangana police will soon receive complaints through the social networking site, Facebook. In a couple of days, every police station in the State will have an official page on Facebook. An officer of the rank of deputy commissioner of police (DCP) would monitor the pages of the police stations under Hyderabad and Cyberabad whereas a Superintendent of Police (SP) would oversee the pages of police stations in each district across the State. Telangana Director General of Police (DGP)  Anurag Sharma directed the Hyderabad and Cyberabad police commissioners M Mahender Reddy and CV Anand respectively to implement this system as a pilot project. Following this, Mahender Reddy on Saturday night convened a meeting with deputy commissioners of police (DCPs), assistant commissioners of police (ACPs) and technical teams to implement the project. In Hyderabad city, 60 police stations are functioning. Each police station will have an official page on Facebook. The Station House Officer (SHO) concerned, will be responsible for receiving complaints posted by people on the page. The ACP concerned will coordinate with all inspectors in redressing public issues. If the complainant does not get any proper response from the inspector or ACP, the complainant can reach out to the DCP concerned  directly through this page and bring the issue to his/her notice. DCP, west zone, V Satyanarayana told Express that they would open official pages on Facebook for all the police stations in his zone to accept public complaints. “It will help the public to reach the police to lodge their complaints online through Facebook. Not only does it create awareness among the police to be friendly with the public, it will also create an impact on public issues after the people start interacting with the police directly online,” the DCP said. In Cyberabad, 42 police stations are located in five zones and Cyber Crime. As many as 14 ACPs including Cyber Crime and five DCPs would monitor their teams in implementing the new project. The technical team of commissionerate concerned is busy in creating pages on Facebook with user IDs and passwords. The new IDs will be provided to police stations concerned in one or two days. Police are also taking steps to create awareness among the people not to violate rules by posting indecent or irrelevant messages. If anyone is found posting such content on the Facebook pages, police will not hesitate to take stern action against them under the IT Act.

By Mouli Mareedu

moulimareedu@gmail.com