Indian Police Foundation and LocalCircles enable online Community Policing networks across India to improve Citizen-Police connectivity

January 17, 2017, New Delhi, India: The Indian Police Foundation, a multidisciplinary think tank working for transformational reforms in the Indian Police, together with LocalCircles, India’s leading citizen engagement platform, today unveiled a new initiative that brings Citizens and Police closer for better policing.

Online communities under the umbrella of “Surakshit Bharat- Safe India” have been initiated and during the soft roll out phase, over 150,000 citizens from over 200 districts of India have joined the initiative which enables a common citizen to have a say in policing policy and various aspects of safety and security. Indian Police Foundation will be taking structured inputs from citizen discussions on various subjects and sharing the same with Ministry of Home Affairs and different State Police Leadership.

In addition to the national online community, state level online communities have been initiated for over 20 states and the foundation is the process of enabling access for State and City police forces across these states. The remaining states will be brought online by Jan 31st as well.

As part of the initiative, city level Law & Order online communities have also being established in over 50 top cities of India such that the citizens can alert each other of various law & order issue as well as alert their city police. City police in turn can also send alerts on various initiatives, updates or seek citizen assistance. If the city level police leadership shows interest in forming citizen-police communities at the station or beat level, the same can also be initiated in the future.

“Social Media, if used constructively can be one of the best enablers for citizen participation in making our daily lives better and safer”, said Mr. Prakash Singh, Chairman, Indian Police Foundation and Former DGP, Uttar Pradesh & Assam. “This community policing platform “Surakshit Bharat” powered by LocalCircles and Indian Police Foundation is very unique because it can enable citizens to engage at national, state, city and potentially station level to improve law, order and safety”, continued Mr. Singh.

“LocalCircles is pleased to be the enabler of the Surakshit Bharat community policing platform and bringing citizens together for this very important cause which concerns the common citizen”, said Sachin Taparia, Chairman and CEO, LocalCircles. “With community policing circles already live with a few city police forces, we hope many more city police teams will make use of the platform and get connected with citizens they serve, continued Taparia.

“Indian Police Foundation is pleased to be the founder of the “Surkashit Bharat” community policing platform and will coordinate the access enablement for all state police forces of India”, said N Ramachandran, President, Indian Police Foundation. “In addition, all structured discussions in the national community will be converted to whitepapers and will be shared with Ministry of Home Affairs and State Police Leadership so policing policy and reforms process are inclusive and have the participation of the civil society”, continued Ramachandran.

The national community “Surakshit Bharat” is live with active discussions taking place on Women Safety, Smart Policing, Anti Child Labour, Vigilant Citizenry against Terrorism, Child Safety Online, etc. A discussion has also taken place with Kailash Satyarthi and other domain experts and most of them are very keen to share their thought leadership in the circle.

The state and city and potential station level communities will be more local policy and transactional in nature and enable citizens to raise issues of concern to the community, assist police where possible as well as for police to share alerts and information of local relevance. For example, citizens will be in a position to communicate to the SHO regarding traffic accidents, traffic jams, other incidents having a bearing on public order, movement or presence of suspicious persons etc.

The communities are being structured for optimum use such that in cases of crimes like kidnapping, stolen cars or missing children, police officials will be able to broadcast alerts to areas beyond their station or district and seek assistance not just from police but also citizens in those areas. The platform will empower citizens and station/district police to identify issues of community concerns like chain snatching, robberies, disturbances, anti-social activity in an area and drive faster action as both the communities and police will be able to know about these activities on fingertips and will work towards addressing them.

Police officials as well as citizens can join the community by visiting:
http://bit.ly/surakshit-bharat