Pune Mirror: Pune: Saturday, February 03, 2018.
While the
police have been encouraging Puneites to send photos of violations via WhatsApp
and Twitter, complainants say that concrete action is rarely taken
The Pune
traffic police may be going to great lengths to encourage citizens to
communicate with them via social media, but the relationship seems to be rather
one-sided.
With Pune’s
sudden and haphazard growth, traffic has increased exponentially and laws have
been studiously ignored. To combat this menace, traffic cops had started an
initiative that urged citizens to be ‘proactive and responsible’ and help
police tackle traffic problems with the help of social media. The police
actively encouraged the use of WhatsApp and Twitter by netizens to identify and
nab traffic rule violators.
However,
citizens who tried registering a complaint to help the police via these forums
are less than satisfied with the responses they have received and feel that the
traffic police department should be more active and take these complaints more
seriously.
Elaborating
on the lack of response, Right to Information (RTI) activist Prafful Sarda
said, “I have sent various photos of multiple offences occurring at different
locations. I am providing the police with readymade proof for them to act upon.
But no concrete response is forthcoming, nor is proper action taken. Cops need
to understand that apart from a social service, this is also a personal matter.
Whenever a concerned citizen sends a photograph of a particular traffic
violation, the person is witnessing the incident and is affected by it.”
Sarda has
sent around 15 WhatsApp messages and tweeted nine times to the cops, but to no
avail.
Software
engineer Rohan Gandhi, too, expressed his dissatisfaction with the initiative,
saying, “I’ve never received a response on Facebook and seldom get replies on
Twitter. When they do respond, it is usually something vague like, ‘We will
investigate.”
However,
Ashok Morale, deputy commissioner of police (traffic), insisted that a response
system is in place. “We have responded to most of the complaints that we
received. We have dedicated personnel with the required technological skill set
who look into all the complaints,” he asserted.
Police sub
inspector Suhas More also told Mirror that the traffic police department has a
system to record and keep track of all the complaints received via social
media. “The photographs that we get through social media are run through the
device meant for e-challan to generate a receipt,” he explained. Unfortunately,
as Pune Mirror reported on August 20, 2017, in a story titled, ‘All’s not fine
with the e-challan system,’ the system has been far from effective.
However,
Morale also assured that they would look into the matter and get back to
complainants with the appropriate responses.
But, citizens
are far from convinced. Said Sarda, “I have received responses saying that my
complaint has been forwarded to the police station concerned. But I’ve never
been told that action has been initiated against those photographed by us. If
the police do not pay enough attention towards these complaints, people will be
dissuaded from being responsible citizens and stop helping the authorities on
such drives.”
Cops need to
understand that apart from a social service, this is also a personal matter.
Whenever a concerned citizen sends a photograph of a particular traffic
violation, the person is witnessing the incident and is affected by it
— Prafful
Sarda, RTI activist
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