Bengaluru: School dropouts and ex-criminals now have a chance to lead a normal life with the city police launching a programme, 'Bharawase' (Hope), to bring them back to the mainstream.
The West division police in the city, who have started the programme after consulting City Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar, found that muggings, thefts and robberies were occurring mainly because of unemployment and lack of proper education. Majority of the arrested accused told the police that they took to crime because they did not have a stable job. It was also found that they were influenced by others with criminal background in their localities.
A senior police officer said, "The West division has a number of slums under its jurisdiction and there are hundreds of school dropouts in these pockets. They are easily influenced by criminals as they are young. When we were investigating several cases, the common factor was that these teenagers and even adults did not have stables jobs. We decided to help them in some way and thought of training them in carpentry, painting, soap making and other courses and also to enrol them in personality development classes. This has been received well by the people. We are planning to start the programme across the city to ensure that the younger generation does not go astray."
Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Ravi D. Channannavar, who is the brain behind the programme, said, "We coordinated with an NGO, Amruthabindu, and designed the programme. Currently, we have three batches with 50 students each from all age groups. Our aim is to ensure that they give up their criminal ways and learn how to read and write Kannada or English. These people are also being trained in carpentry, plumbing, drawing and more. This will keep them busy and will not allow them to get their mind diverted. It will also prevent them from getting influenced by anti-social elements."
He said that the programme should be introduced across the city to help such people lead a normal life.
