Mumbai police restart foot patrol to curb crime

The city police are going back to basics.

They have found out that foot patrolling, which was no longer followed, is necessary in to prevent crime and maintain law and order.

In a new development, many of the police stations have formed five teams of six policemen each. Three teams will patrol on foot during the day and two teams at night.

“Foot patrolling is the best way to depict police presence. It certainly helps in bringing the crime rate down,” said deputy commissioner of police P Dighavkar.

Senior officials said patrolling on four wheelers and motorbikes have taken over foot patrolling. The vehicles zip past, thereby reducing the effect of police presence in people’s minds.
According to the new initiative, each police personnel patrolling the street has to walk for two hours and then take a half-an-hour rest.

It also aims at ensuring that all the important areas under the jurisdiction of the police station are being patrolled all the time.
“When the police personnel from one team covers point A to B,  at the same time, another police personnel from the other team will walk from point B to A and so hence and so forth. This will help us in keeping track of the area in more efficient manner at all the given time,” said a senior police officer.

Patrolling will be more intense at malls, cinema halls, places of worship, markets, junctions and other such places of high human concentration.

Cycle patrolling was reintroduced in the city couple of months ago in the western suburbs from Bandra to Dahisar has started showing good results. “The number of cases of crime in these areas has come down,” the police official said.