New police division created in city

New police division created in city

The Hindu

South-East division will cover the areas coming under the IT corridor

# Four new police stations to be established
# The creation of the division can be a precursor to strengthening of police stations
# Soumendu Mukherjee posted as DCP of newly created South-East division

BANGALORE: The long-pending proposal to create a compact police division to improve policing in the city's Information Technology (IT) corridor has finally come true with the Government on Monday posting Soumendu Mukherjee as Deputy Commissioner of Police of the newly created South-East division.

The South-East division, which will formally come into existence from Tuesday, will cover the areas coming under the IT corridor: from the International Technology Park Ltd. (ITPL) in Whitefield to Bannerghatta Road.

Jurisdiction

The new division will include the Madivala, Koramangala and MICO Layout police stations of the South division, Airport and HAL police stations of the East division and Varthur, Kadugodi and Whitefield police stations of Bangalore Rural district.

Further, four new police stations will be established at Electronics City, HSR Layout, Parappana Agrahara and Hulimavu in the South-East division.

The unprecedented growth witnessed in the South-Eastern parts of the city following the IT revolution has thrown up new challenges for the police in the past few years.

Several software companies, call centres, apartment complexes, residential layouts, multiplex and shopping malls have come up in the IT belt comprising Madivala, Koramangala, Airport Road, BTM Layout, HSR Layout, Bannerghatta Road, Hosur Road, Sarjapur Road and Whitefield.

With the increase in the population, mainly of the affluent people, in these areas, cases of robbery, chain snatching and burglary have also gone up. The police are finding it difficult to patrol the newly developed areas with the existing staff.

Staff strength

According to sources in the city police, the staff strength of important police stations such as Koramangala and Madivala has remained the same for the past 10 years. It is said that the staff strength of the Madivala police station is same as that of the Shankarapuram station, which has jurisdiction over a smaller area. The creation of the South-East division could be a precursor to strengthening of these police stations, the sources said. Referring to the crimes reported from these areas in which large number of IT professionals are residing, the sources said there have been many incidents of burglars identifying the houses of software engineers and looting them.

Many incidents of armed men waylaying and robbing software engineers, returning home from work or after dinner at a hotel, have also been reported from these areas. The odd-working hours of the IT companies is also said to be an important reason for such incidents.