Top cop’s way to keep family spats at bay

Chetana, a volunteer organisation initiated by Superintendent of Police B Sumathi, is bringing smiles to hundreds of troubled families across the district by settling quarrels between spouses

Sangareddy: In an effort to put an end to family fracases and promote peaceful domestic life, Medak Police have come up with a unique campaign that is yielding incredible results across the district. Chetana, the brainchild of district Superintendent of Police B Sumathi, was launched in August 2015.

After six months of its inception, the organisation is now surging ahead by not only resolving family conflicts outside the courts of law, but also contributing to social and police reforms, by bridging the gap between the police and the civil society. Chetana distress intervention counselling centres have been operating in 14 circles out of the total 17 circles of Medak district.

The objectives of these centres are to receive complaints from various petitioners having family problems, to facilitate an environment where healthy discussions take place between the petitioner and the respondent, give counselling to these people and let them resolve the problem between themselves and avoiding the repercussions of filing an FIR.

The Village Police Officer (VPO) or the Circle Inspector can bring the petitions to the notice of Chetana. The police also identify compoundable cases in those circles for the past one year and refer them to Chetana. Both the petitioners and the respondents are called to the Chetana centers, where an effort to resolve the issue with a mutual understanding between both the parties are undertaken.

The Medak Police have roped in volunteers from both the police and the civil society to facilitate the counselling. A Chetana centre team comprises of four retired teachers from the circle with no political affiliation and with a sound economic condition selected after thorough scrutiny, a male ASI or a senior head constable and a woman constable and the team is led by the Circle Inspector.

These volunteers were trained by professional psychologists and psychiatrists from Hyderabad to provide counselling to troubled families. The volunteers work every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, between 10 am and 5 pm. As of now, Chetana centres are being rung in selected schools and colleges. Police officers in the team do not wear uniform while attending counselling sessions.

In just six months since its inception, a total of 984 petitions have been taken up by Chetana volunteers across Medak District. 864 conflicts have been successfully compromised, with 78 still pending in the centres. Only 29 FIRs have been filed, since the parties had failed to come to an understanding after the counselling sessions.

Currently, people are directly walking into the counselling centres without even being referred by the police stations. Not just people with family problems, even eve teasers nabbed by the ‘SHE Teams’ are also being given counselling along with their parents at Chetana centres. In the mega Lok Adalat held recently in Medak, 1,600 cases put through Chetana have been settled.

“The Circle Inspectors should take ownership of the 14 Chetana centres just like they take complete ownership of police stations. Only then this campaign will become successful,” Sumathi said. She expressed confidence over the success of the campaign and hoped to see that it would be introduced in all other districts of Telangana in the near future. It is interesting to note that the campaign is not funded by the government. It is a voluntary service offered by police officers, retired teachers and experts in psychiatry and psychology.