Bengaluru: Women in distress can now seek police assistance by a mere click of a button of their smartphones. All they need is to install an App 'Suraksha - Bengaluru City Police' - a fully integrated personal safety App - introduced by the Bengaluru City Police to help women in emergencies.
Though there are many safety Apps catering to women, most of them hardly work. However, the police claim that Suraksha App has been designed with perfection. The police, along with the staff of Trinity Mobility which has developed the App, have spent a significant time in testing the App, to make it effective.
The App can downloaded free of cost on android and IOS phones and aims at reaching to the rescue of women in distress in least possible time, as it is connected to all the Pink Hoysala Patrol vehicles and police control room. Moreover, it has an option to register two numbers of the person the user wants to inform during emergencies.
Explaining the process, a police official who was part of the App monitoring team, told Deccan Chronicle that Suraksha App is easy to use and more effective than other safety Apps available online.
"Smartphone users have to download the App on their mobile phones. Post installation, the user has to provide two mobile numbers which the App uses to send information. If the user found herself in an unfavorable situation, just pressing the red button or pressing of power button five times continuously would send an SOS alert along with the location details to the police control room.
The Pink Hoysala team from the nearest point would be informed, which will intervene and take immediate action and update to the Command Centre. The case then will be handed over to the jurisdictional police," the police official said.
"This all will happen simultaneously and there wouldn't be any delay," the official added. A 20-member staff is exclusively trained to respond to alert triggered by the Suraksha App who will reach out to the victims for details. The unique thing about the App is that it records a 10-second video clip and upload it on control room's server.
Suraksha App, which will be launched on Monday by the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister G. Parameshwar, has already crossed 6,000 downloads and in fact, people are very happy about the initiative.
While most users have praised the feature of Suraksha App, a few users have been reporting bugs, which automatically activates the SOS alert, eventually leading to a false alarm. The police, however, are working on solving them.
How it works?
- If a user is in danger, she can either press the red button on the 'Suraksha - Bengaluru City Police' App or press the power button of her smartphone five times
- An SOS alert would be sent along with the location details of the user to the police control room
- The Pink Hoysala team at the nearest point would be informed, which will take immediate action and update the command centre. The case will then be handed over to the jurisdictional police
App naming contest
The police had invited the public to participate in a contest by sending proper names for the App. More than 500 names were received from across the state out of which a large number suggested 'Suraksha'.
