Five years on, city police still waits for barricades

The Delhi police has failed to procure 6,000 barricades during the last five years due to various reasons. The file pertaining to procurement of barricades, which now runs into 1000-odd pages, is moving from one senior officer to another in the police headquarters.

On the other hand, poli-ce personnel on ground duty have been complaining that they have not been provided with barricades for the past several years as senior officers are not taking any decision on the pressing issue.

There are about 5,000 barricades with the force. The maximum number of barricades is used in Lutyens’ Delhi and North Delhi to manage vehicular movement for VIP routes and for handling protests and demonstrations.

Delhi police commissioner Alok Kumar Verma has directed all deputy commissioners of police to strategically place barricades to stop street crimes.

At a high-level meeting, Mr Verma pointed out that the cases of snatching have shown an increase of over three per cent as compared to last year. Quoting minutes of the meeting, a senior officer said, “The police chief has directed that sincere efforts need to be taken by all district deputy commissioners of police especially New Delhi, northeast, Central and North district for not only working out cases of snatching, but also for adopting preventive measures by identifying snatching prone areas. Position of police pickets and barricades should be changed frequently based on analysis of crime trend.”

Significantly, the Delhi police reported to the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs headed by P. Bhattacharya that one of the measures taken to counter terror attacks is that the local police checks buses and other vehicles regularly by placing barricades on the road at selected places. “DTC depot managers and private bus operators are also briefed about precautions to be taken by them and their drivers/conductors. DTC has also been requested to install CCTVs inside the buses as well as outside the entry door to keep watch over public,” the police had stated in its report.

But shortage of barricades at police station level can compromise the anti-terror precautionary measures in Delhi which is venerable to such attacks being the national capital of the country.