Now, police stations in Bihar’s Kishanganj cannot ignore any complaint of anyone. The SP of Kishanganj, Dr. Inamul Haq Mengnoo, is personally seeing to it that no complainant goes back from the police station without his complaint being heard and action taken. The officer is firm when it comes to enforcing law and order in his jurisdiction and does not take carelessness from his team kindly.
Since the online portal for complaint is defunct now, the 2012-batch IPS officer of Bihar cadre ordered the creation of a specific mail ID for each police station in Kishanganj district. He has taken this step so that police personnel cannot refuse inquiries in any case, saying the complainant never reached them for help. The record of each complaint will be saved in the mailbox, which is not the case with handwritten complaints.
In conversation with Indian Masterminds, Dr. Mengnoo talked about this initiative in detail.
MAIL ID CREATED WITH NIC HELP
Explaining his move to create mail ID for complaint registration, Dr. Mengnoo said, “Most of the people who visit me have the same complain. According to them, they keep visiting the police station, but no one listens to them. Often the police staff send them back and don’t register the complaint even after a lot of pleading. When I assign any senior officer to enquire about a certain complaint, most of the time I get similar answers, that the individual never visited the police station. Since there is no record of the visit or complaint, it becomes difficult to take any action.”
To tackle this issue, he decided to create a mail ID for each police station. All the IDs were made by National Informatics Centre (NIC). Now no one has to visit police station for lodging complaints, it can be done directly on mail to the concerned station.
This will bring transparency in work and the police personnel will be more responsible. As all the complaint mails will be saved in the mailbox, no SHO can now deny that a complaint has been lodged at the police station. It will also save time for both the sides and the record of each complaint will be secure on mails which will help in further inquiries.
REACHING OUT TO LOCAL MEDIA
Dr. Mengnoo added that now everyone has Internet and with mail ID, it will be very easy to mail a complaint rather than personally going to a police station to do it.
However, the officer also cautions about false complaints, as this will invite false ones in abundance, too. “Every solution comes with shortcomings, and we have to find a system of check and balance in it,” he said.
Currently, his team is reaching out to all local media to disseminate information about the mail ID. Besides this, Dr. Mengnoo is also targeting to make his office completely paperless. He is hopeful that within 3-4 months, all work in his office will be digitalized.