Local NGOs of Delhi, Raahat, Aagaaz & DaadiMaan Trust came forward to join Police Reforms from Peoples’ Perspective Campaign in Delhi, Its representatives along with AAP(आम आदमी पार्टी) POC(Point of Contact) Ms.Mousree joined to reach Police Station Malviynagar to have a meeting with SHO and ask him to nominate a POC on behalf of local police for information sharing to facilitate implementation of the campaign in the area of Malviynagar Police Station. The PRPP campaign is dedicated to bringing together the public and the police to turn the current selfdirected police into public led police and monitor its limitations and challenges to suggest policy changes with evidence based information to turn its leadership and police in itself from reactive to proactive and more accountable for police failures and apathy.
Five Member Team of PRPP briefing Inspector Vijay Pal,SHO Malviynagar
An expression of solidaity from Mr.Saurabh Bhardwaj,MLA, of AAP(आम आदमी पार्टी)GK constituency inspired us to begin the initiative from the Police station of Malviy Nagar area. We shared the idea with our old associates and found willing colloborators of local NGOs namely Aagaaz, Rahat,Daadimaa.
On 18th December through a mobile call to Inspector Vijay Pal SHO Malviyanagar, the meeting was scheduled with him at Police station Malviy Nagar and accordingly our Five member Team of Police Reforms From Peoples’ Perspective comprising of S/Sh.V.P.Yadav , N.N.Kalia, Jyotirmoy Guha and Aridaman Jit Singh and Ms.Mousree Guha converged at the police station.
Despite of each member of this Team coming from different direction and distances in Delhi, the most inspiring outcome was that everyone made it to the venue of meeting well before time to have the first interaction with Delhi Police to take them along for Police Reforms From Peoples’ Perspective.
Since we had prior appointment, we entered the office of SHO at 1636 Hrs. and found Inspector Vijaypal was in his seat busy talking to some one over his mobile and few of his subordinates were seated before him, our entry was acknowledged by him by waving his hand indicating us to sitdown and wait, but I preferred to come out and discuss with Team Members about impending interactions and our experience in other states on police responses.
In the meantime Inspector Vijay Pal came out of his office and was seen talking over his mobile it seems to some senior and after talking for a while I noticed him going back to his office and we decided to join him, but the moment he noticed us entering his office, he again asked us to wait outside in the waiting room and told that he will be calling us and we returned to the fancy cold broken banches of steel that are meant to welcome the victims of crimes who come while in distress to police station to seek police assistance.
A glance through the website of Delhi Police in the proactive disclosure chapter of RTI, reveals a long list of the initiatives that are dedicated to public interaction to inspire public participation but now here we were going to experience in real life, how it turn outs to be.
Another half an hour passed and I kept noticing people storming in and out of office of SHO and few more visitors, another couple arrived at Police Station and entered SHO’s office and got seated there to wait for their turn, my colleagues concluded that we must also go in rather than keep waiting forever, so we again entered the office.
Inspector Vijay Pal said “आप बाहर इंतज़ार कीजिए में अभी आपको बुलाता हूँ” I replied him “काफी जनता आ कर जा रही है”, He seems to have registered the message and directed the couple seated in his office to go out and wait, we too came out again and began waiting more patiently and confidently.
After about another 5 minutes SHO summoned us, Aridaman Jit Singh, Campaign Convener introduced the Team members to Inspector Vijay Pal and described the brief details of campaign and even before he could be presented with the letter on campaign, the first immediate sentence of SHO was “बिना परमिशन के आप कोई कोई भी मीटिंग नहीं कर सकते”, he appeared to be asserting his authority and control.
Mr.Aridaman Jit Singh, further descibed him the working of police in realtion to present paramilitary structure, its pitfalls and his personal experience and current status of campaign and its impending activities that will in practice make the police public led and presented him letter on campaign along with its enclosures consisting of our letter to Lieutenant Governor Delhi and its subsequent circulation by the office of Commissioner of Police Delhi. Now the first immediate step expected from SHO was to nominate a POC(Point of Contact) from his police station for information sharing, SHO promptly nominated Sub Inspector Prem and gave his mobile number on a slip and simultaneously appreciated the initiative on Police Reforms and advised us to come on Monday, It all lasted for about 5-7 minutes with the courtesy of a glass of water being offered to all the Team members.
At the end of the meeting Aridaman Jit Singh requested the SHO to call some one to click the picture of our meeting, he replied it can be clicked on Monday but Aridaman Jit Singh insisted that it is the first interaction dedicated to democratization of police and beginning of a long journey to restructre Delhi Police by Demilitarizing and Decentralizing it to make it compatible with democratic governance, so a history in the making.
The youngman who had offered us the glass of water was called again and he clicked few pictures of our intercation and we parted with optimism to have begun the journey for Delhi Police’s transition to democracy.
Before parting from the Police station we had a picture clicked by Aridaman Jit Singh to mark the begining at Police station at Malviynagar.
Team-PRPP-19-12-13