UK police officers commend policing in Hyderabad

• Officers visit Abids and Chilkalaguda police station and appreciate the system set up to attend to citizens grievances
• They evince keen interest on community CC TV cameras

Hyderabad: Policing in Hyderabad is on a par with the standards maintained in the United Kingdom and Australia, according to information shared by senior police officers from those respective countries.These comments were shared by police officers of superintendent rank from Queensland, Victoria, West Midlands and the United Kingdom Metropolitan police after their visit to Abids and Chilkalguda police stations on Saturday as part of a field visit after completing their mid-career training program at Sardar Vallabhbhai National Police Academy.

A team consisting of Chief Superintendent of UK Metropolitan Police Service Sue Williams, Detective Superintendent (West Midlands Police) Tim Bacon, Superintendent (Queensland Police) Paul Ziebarth, Superintendent (Victoria Police) David Clayton, Detective Superintendent Arthur Moerman and Superintendent Brett Greentree visited the two police stations.

During their visit, officers learnt about the 16 verticals set up by the Hyderabad city police in order to deliver better services to citizens. The officers were explained about the reception management, complaint assignment, daily status report, investigation procedures, crime and accident mapping, live tracking of patrolling cars, blue colts management, crime analysis, collection of crime and criminal data and utilisation of data to prevent crimes and also the court procedures followed at the police station level.

Sharing her experience, MET Chief Superintendent Sue Williams said the standards being maintained by Hyderabad police are on a par with those maintained in the UK. The mobile applications used by the police to attend to citizens’ grievances were good, she said. They expressed their willingness to exchange ideas to prevent crime and also to share technological initiatives implemented in the UK and Australia.

Tim Bacon, Detective Superintendent of West Midlands Police, told The Hans India that the CC camera initiative was a welcome step in crime prevention. “Installation of CC Cameras in communities to prevent and detect crimes is better than that has been maintained in the UK. The resolution of CC cameras is higher than that we have in UK,” he said.

In reply to a query, Tim Bacon said when compared to the population density of India and UK, the number of crimes registered was less with an average of 20,000 cases registered every year. He said that in the UK, when a citizen calls police to complain about a burglary, the police would rush to the spot and take a complaint and the victim need not visit a police station to lodge a complaint.

When asked if they wanted to suggest any changes to policing in Hyderabad, the officers said "Indian police are intelligent. They know how to tackle things."Central Zone DCP V B Kamalasan Reddy, who accompanied the officers and explained to them about policing, said they had shown utmost interest in learning about the community CC camera project. They liked the segregation of work at the police station level and also the live tracking of patrolling vehicles, the DCP said.