Chennai: The checks on vehicles and the drive against drunken driving will resume from Monday. Chennai roads will once see the active presence of police patrol cars and checking squads, said a senior police officer to a query from this newspaper.
The checks will be as vigorous as they were before the flooding which the city suffered from early this month. Police presence on city roads had come down to a minimum level after the floods. Many residents began to feel that the concept of visible policing too had got washed away in the floods in the first week of December, since when there have also been no checks for drunken motorists.
“Please don't think we had stopped our drive against drunken driving. It will be on from Monday. What you have noticed is temporary as we decided not to trouble motorists for some time. The honeymoon is over. It will be restarted on Monday. Once it starts the visibility of cops would go up,” a senior official said indicating that New Year revelers should be careful.
“In a city where at least two chain snatchings happen every day and serial burglaries and housebreaks are taking place in every neighbourhood, how can the police do away with visible policing? We can feel the absence of police and police vehicle when we drive in the night nowadays. Their presence used to gave us a sense of safety and security when policing was active,” said engineering professional C.V. Krishnan, a resident of Virugambakkam.
Another senior police official said that they are strategising manpower for better deployment as the police personnel from almost every station were forced assist the Corporation and Revenue officials during flood relief works.
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