Police complaint boxes missing from all over Mumbai

Mumbai Policersquos plan to allow citizens to register complaints with the force has flopped miserably In October the police department had installed 1000 complaint boxes all over the city to enable people to put in their complaints easily Most of these boxes have been stolen by drug addicts Mumbai Police in the presence of the state home minister R R Patil guardian minister of the city Jayant Patil MNS MLA Nitin Sardesai and Dr Satyapal Singh the commissioner of Mumbai police had handed over around 1000 complaint boxes to the 96 police stations in the city at Ravindra Natya Mandir in Prabhadevi Dadar in October 2012 Broken The broken complaint box at C P Tank The boxes were installed at various schools colleges hospitals corporate offices with an aim to provide an easy way to reach the authorities ldquoThe aim was that anybody could drop herhis complaint in the box In fact it could also be against the police Special Branch officers were to open the boxes and collect the letters so that it could be investigated by the policerdquo said a police officer from the Dadar police station A complaint box was stolen from right under the policersquos noses at a beat chowkie under the Bhoiwada police station PicsMilind Karekar Today the SB has no such duty as most of the boxes are gone Surprisingly the ones installed near police stations and beat chowkies are also missingThis correspondent checked on the status of several boxes in the city At C P Tank in Girgaum the complaint box broken At KPB Hinduja College in Charni Road it was missing Same was the case with units at several other institutes in the city namely Welingkar Insitute of Management Matunga Ramnarian Ruia College Matunga Wilson College Girgaum R D National College Bandra V G Vaze College Mulund KEM Hospital Parel ldquoThe boxes were made of fibre and were very weak SB used to open them but they stopped doing so within two months of the boxes being placed The keys were handed over to the local deputy commissioner of police DCP but the local police station never got the keys In the end the boxes just gathered dust and were later stolen by drug addicts who broke them off the walls as the units were very weakrdquo said another police officer The Special Branch clarified that they didnrsquot have adequate manpower to look after boxes all over the city and hence had transferred the duties to the local DCPs ldquoDue to lack of manpower we had informed Commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh that we wouldnrsquot be able to carry out the work of removing the letters from the complaint boxes Hence we gave the keys to the local DCPrdquo said Sanjay Shintre deputy commissioner of police Special Branchu00a0The Home Minister himself had announced that if the complaint boxes project succeeded in the city he planned to take it to other cities ldquoHow can one take such projects to another city if they are not succeeding in one city itself The fibre used in such boxes was of such low quality The distribution of the complaint boxes was just a photo opportunity for all the senior cabinet ministers and the commissioner of policerdquo said a senior officer from the Mumbai policeu00a0 Gaurav Patel who works near Hinduja College said ldquoI saw the box at the college gate for about a month I have no clue where it disappeared after that Harassment cases often take place outside colleges It was great that students especially girls could lodge anonymous complaints But now there is no box to do sordquou00a0Anandani Thakoor social worker and activist from the BandraKharSantacruz area called for the police to maintain the boxes ldquoItrsquos very good that someone can lodge a complaint without revealing hisher name They should maintain the complaint boxesrdquou00a0 The other side Assistant Commissioner of Police and Mumbai police spokesperson Bhagwan Chate claimed that none of the complaint boxes were stolen and they were all intact Commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh himself was unavailable for comments despite several calls and messages