Hyderabad: The ‘Whatsapp connection’ of Cyberabad police seems to be working well. In just 30 days the police received 341 complaints about crimes and traffic problems. Four missing kids were traced in hours and 25 chain snatching cases were solved after people forwarded photographs and details to the police Whatsapp number.
Police received information about crimes, accidents, public nuisance and dead bodies from citizens. Commissioner C.V. Anand said that cops are acting quickly on complaints and officers are constantly monitoring messages. The cops have also received over 10,000 greeting messages from citizens.
The Whatsapp complaint system was launched on February 20.
“A private school of Yacharam sent a message on March 9 about four missing boys named Bharath, Sreedhar, Shravan and Praveen all aged around 12. The photographs of the boys were also forwarded. In a few hours the kids were traced by Meerpet police,” said an official from Cyberabad.
When officers in the WhatsApp control room receive a complaint they forward it for action.
Commissioner Anand said the police department has also started Whatsapp groups to communicate during duty. “On the day of launch 10 groups of police officers were made and now it has increased to 13 groups consisting of 776 police officers. Specific groups have been formed for law and order, crime, traffic, SHE teams, first responder command center, patrol cars, special branch and CSW headquarters,” said Mr Anand.
The officers can instantly share photographs and details of criminals, missing persons, places of VIP bandobust and MLC election polling centers.
“The instant sharing of CTV footages of crime also help us to arrest the accused. In one case, a notorious chain snatcher of Kukatpally was identified and his photograph was sent to all groups. In a few hours LB Nagar police arrested him and solved 25 snatching cases,” said the commissioner.
