Ulsoor police, short of all but crime

Ulsoor police, short of all but crime

The Ulsoor police station is in need of personnel as well as infrastructure to counter the area's growing crime rate

Soumya Menon. Bangalore

The 34-year-old Ulsoor police station, which comes under the East Division of Bangalore, is as neglected as it is ancient. The staff shortage at the police station has led to a reduction in case detection and a massive rise in work allocation among its personnel.
Ulsoor police station covers a potpourri of areas, occupied by people from slums, middle class families as well as the ultra-rich section. Its jurisdiction extends over a part of the Old Airport Road, as well as areas between Ulsoor Lake and Intermediate Inner Ring Road (East to West), and Old Madras Road and Brunton Road (North and South).
According to police inspector M K Thammaiah, the station faces a huge staff shortage problem especially when they are deployed on VVIP security duty. "As VVIPs prefer landing at the old airport on chartered flights, we have to deploy our staff on special bandobast duty," he said.
The station's allotted staff strength comprises one police inspector, one sub-inspector (three posts vacant), seven assistant sub-inspectors (one post vacant), 16 head constables (nine posts vacant) and 46 constables (20 posts vacant). "We have made several requests for staff recruitment, but nobody seems to care. And new recruits refuse to be posted here due to the cumbersome bandobast duty that we end up performing so often," said Thammaiah.
He said that Ulsoor police personnel are supposed to have eight beats, but the staff shortage makes it difficult for them to cover all areas properly. Also, in the circumstances, the number of cheating and vehicle theft cases is reaching for the sky. Even four-wheeler theft has become very commonplace here, not to mention petty crimes that involve pinching of mobile phones, laptops and gold chains," said Thammaiah. "Credit and debit card frauds are also on the rise in this area,'' said Thammaiah.
The police station covers a population of three lakh, and the number of police personnel is hardly enough to monitor their activities.
The police personnel here have just one jeep (for the inspector) and four cheetah motorcycles, which are definitely not enough for patrolling.
Vikram R, a student, said that Ulsoor suffers from poor police patrolling. "You hardly find any policemen at night, and it's not safe to walk around this area at night," he said.
When in need, you may contact Thammaiah at 2294 2540.