PLEASE TALK TO US AT 8 P.M. EVERY SATURDAY, AT DD-BANGLA.

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 In Remembrance - Martyrs of 26/11

 

 

26/11 will always remain in our minds as a black day in the history of India. The brutal terror attack on Mumbai 2 years back had a global impact, which left the whole world in an utter shock. However, it is the spirit of India that helps us sail through. In an act of reverence, prayer and appeal for peace, Kolkata Police in association with Radio Mirchi, had organized a Candle Light Vigil on 26^thNovember 2010. The act was preceded by an official remembrance parade in front of Police Memorial in the morning hours. Honourable Governor of West Bengal, Shri R K Narayan was present during the parade to pay tribute to the departed souls of police personnel who laid their lives fighting for the nation.

In the evening, at 17.00 hours, a ‘walk for peace’ was organized from the North Gate of Victoria Memorial to Mohar Kunj, where around 4000 citizens of Kolkata joined the noble endeavour. A candle light vigil was organized at Mohar Kunj where candles were lit in reverence of the deceased in the 26/11 terror attacks. Participators walked from Mohar Kunj to Police Memorial and lit candles as a mark of respect for the police martyrs.  Eminent personalities from Kolkata like Rituparna Sengupta, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Agnimitra Paul, Sanatan Dinda, Rupam Islam, Masidur Rahaman, Subrata Bhattacharya and Maidul Islam actively participated in this candle light vigil and peace walk.  Organizations like Bharat Sevasram, Muslim organizations and school students of Nabadisha and Kiran projects were among the other enthusiastic participants.Spl. Commissioner of Police, Shri R. K. Pachnanda, appealed to all the citizens to be socially responsible and come forward in an act of togetherness against the vile of terrorism.  The event concluded on a note of spreading peace, enforcing safekeeping of the nation and coming together against violence.

Universal peace is the message that we need to spread. In the dawn of new India, let development be guided by security and non-violence. The appeal to cease terrorism is global and we seek active co-operation from one and all to weed it off from the roots. Let us all pledge to fight against terrorism and violence. Come and join hands with us to help safeguard our nation.

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The Quami Ekta Week 

The Communal Harmony Week or the ‘Quami Ekta Saptah’ was observed by the Kolkata Police from the 19st of November 2010 to the 25th of November 2010. The Communal Harmony Week marked a celebration of the’ unity in diversity’, predominant in India. The aim was to make the society enriched with the diverse cultures and ideas of the various communities present in Kolkata. To mark the

celebrations of unity, Kolkata Police organized a gala Sit & Draw competition for children on the 21st of November 2010, at Mohor Kunj. Students from Nabadisha schools participated at the various divisional levels and the best from each division qualified for the final round held at Mohor Kunj. 

On the 23rd of November 2010, the little winners were felicitated. The best drawings from the competition have been galleried at the Lal Bazar campus lobby and will be displayed till the 25th of March 2011.

The pictures painted by the little souls represented various moods and hues of innocence and upheld a noble picture of a communally united and culturally enriched society.

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On noise pollution

  

Long before this Diwali, we initiated a virtual battle against use of banned high-decibel fire-works. This resulted into some success. But there is no point denying that high-decibel fire-crackers were burst on Diwali night. Simply through enforcement, it is nearly impossible to make Diwali night a celebration of light, not that of noise. Two major hubs of fireworks-manufacturing units are located close to Kolkata. They are supposed to manufacture them for other states where the noise -pollution norms are bit relaxed. But pilferage happens and banned fireworks are smuggled in. All this happens because there is a demand.

We urgently feel that it is high time we have a lively debate on the use of noisy fire-works. Let environmentalists and doctors come out with their views on the ill-effect of high-decibel fireworks on health and environment. Let historians say how and when the festival of light turned into a festival of noise.  Let sociologists tell what social implications this sudden spurt of noise pollution may have. Let economist quantify the environmental damage and the financial loss incurred by the noise. Let a man on the street opine.

There must be a large number of citizens who might think otherwise. They might think that one day of noise pollution hardly makes any difference. They might think that police action against bursting fire-crackers is an attack on the tradition and heritage. There might be far more outrageous views on this issue than we could conceive. We even invite them, who do not agree with the ban, to this debate. Let them speak their heart out.

Let’s have a lively platform of debate and discussion out of which we might get some unique solutions to the problem. We hope finally good sense would prevail. Who knows? We might find people, who used to be a violator, are now willing to volunteer for vigil against use of banned fire-works at the end of the debate.

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She nailed her murderer in piece of paper…

 

The key to the murder-mystery was lying buried in an illegible note the victim had written while gasping for breath as her throat was slit. A month later the note led Kolkata police to track her murderer, who was arrested from an apartment in Dadar in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The murder of 31-year-old Mahua Alam on July 7 had stumped investigators because there seemed to be no motive. Nothing was stolen from the rented Green Park flat in Karaya. And Mahua and her husband Nur-e Alam, a government employee, seemed to have the perfect relationship.

On the morning of July 7, Nur got a call on his cellphone from his wife but could not hear anything from the other end. A single groan reached him before the call got disconnected. Mahua’s throat had already been slit down to the windpipe. “When Nur-e Alam came, he was shocked to see Mahua in a pool of blood but trying to write something on a piece of paper. She could not tell anything. Mahua tied her dupatta around the neck to try and stop the bleeding. She was rushed to hospital but she did not survive,” said joint commissioner (crime) Damayanti Sen.

Nur-e Alam handed over the note to the police. After much efforts by hand-writing experts, the statement could be deciphered. The note simply said: “Bhabi, Sania’s mother came. She slit my throat and fled.”

Police did not know who ‘Sania’s mother’ was. Eyewitnesses said they saw a woman leave the Karaya flat hurriedly. Investigators eventually identified her as Mazda Khatoon (34), victim’s former landlady, but did know where she was. Neither did her husband Md Iqbal.

Investigation realised that Mazda suspected Mahua of having an affair with Iqbal. Mahua and Nur had taken Mazda’s flat on rent after Nur was transferred from Birbhum to Budge Budge. The couple lived there for a year during which Mazda began suspecting her husband of having an affair with Mahua. This suspicion led to a major quarrel between the two families and Nur and Mahua moved to Green Park Karaya. But Mazda often dropped by and every visit ended in a quarrel. On July 7, police suspect, she again had a fight with Mahua and killed her with a kitchen knife.

On Friday, Mazda was arrested from her boyfriend Zakir’s apartment in Mumbai.

All crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such. ~

Mahatma Gandhi

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it. ~

Seneca

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On the threshold of a new era…

Kolkata Police on 24^thAugust entered a new era with the formal inauguration of the country’s third cyber crime police station and high-tech state-of-the-art central control room at the city police headquarters at Lalbazar. Soon after the inauguration by the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Infosys mentor Narayana Murthy, who was the chief guest of the function, congratulated the city police for “embracing technology for better productivity and superior transparency.”

The cyber crime police station has hand-picked officers well conversant with cyber crime and information technology laws. Significantly, the cyber crime police station has pool of resource-persons who have been chosen through a year-long cyber crime awareness campaign. “These resource persons are a back-bone of the cyber crime investigating system,” said Kolkata Police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti, who has brought this unique model of police and private partnership into practice.

Already, the model has worked wonder. An international credit-card fraud racket was busted in the city with arrest of a few African kingpins of the racket. Entire administrative jurisdiction of Kolkata Police is the jurisdiction of this specialized police station. “A person can lodge complaint either by e-mail, or by a sms, or by a fax. It will be a centralized unit which will address all cyber crime complaints irrespective of the area within the city and will receive complaints directly instead of being routed through police station,” said the city police chief.

So far, complainants would often be left confused and did not know where to go. The cases had to be channeled through local police station that led to a delay. “Besides handling day-to-day cyber crimes, the city police would aim at using information technology more effectively in preventing and detecting cyber crimes like net-terrorism, net-intimidation, virus dissemination, cyber stalking and cyber defamation,” Chakrabarti added.

The chief minister also inaugurated the upgraded state-of-the art central control room at police headquarters. Armed with integrated GIS-based Automatic Vehicle Tracking and Management System (AVTMS) and Distress Call Response Management System (DCRMS), the control room can address cases of emergency complaints and offending vehicles in the matter of a few minutes. Using the GIS mapping facility, police vehicles stationed at various locations around the city will be tracked. Once a distress call is received, the vehicle stationed nearest to the place of complaint will be sent to the spot.

“We shall soon have a video wall to monitor our vehicles and manage distress calls efficiently. Surveillance cameras are also being put up at 200 sensitive locations around the city for better monitoring. All these are to make Kolkata a safe city in every possible way,” Chakrabarti added.

The entire traffic system is expected to improve a lot with the installation of vehicle detectors on the city roads. The vehicle-detectors can inform a motorist which road to travel and where there are blockades or troubles. The variable message system (VMS) will receive and display the information to the public through LED display boards at critical crossings. This would take the pressure off some over-trafficked roads. All traffic signal controllers under the Area traffic control system (ATCS) are connected to Central Control Room.

Similarly, red light violation detection (RLVD) will record red light violation at signalized junctions electronically using cameras and helps to take lawful measures against the errant vehicles.

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Help within a hand’s reach

Days are gone when accident victims in Kolkata languish on the roads, waiting for a good Samaritan to lend a helping hand. They now have ambulances to ferry them to the nearest hospital and none other than policemen to supervise their rescue and ensure that they receive treatment immediately. The pre-hospitalisation trauma care management, which has been in vogue  since early this year mainly covering the day-time and evening peak hours, will now be a 24X7 affair from this puja, with four more ambulances joining the fleet of 12 ambulances.

Announcing this is at an event held at the ICCR on Sunday, Commissioner of Police Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti  said four hospitals have been roped in to provide emergency care to trauma victims. “These vans, fitted with GPRS tracking systems, will be available from 6 am to 10 p.m. Four will work throughout the night. To make sure that trauma victims are attended to immediately, we have roped in SSKM Hospital, NRS Hospital, M R Bangoor and the Police Hospital. They will have wards dedicated to the treatment of trauma victims,” said Chakrabarti. He added that a few private nursing homes and hospitals were being roped in as well.

“The whole idea is to save golden hour in the life an accident victim. The faster you shift the person to hospital and start treating him, better it is the chance of the survival of the victim. The first phase — pre-hospital management — is over deployment of 12 ambulances, now the entire focus is on hospitalisation. The government has agreed to our proposal of having a few specially designed trauma care beds. Each bed will be mobile intensive therapeutic unit (ITU) so that victim can be given life-saving-support right from the moment he or she gets into the hospital,” said well known orthopedic Ramendra Homchowdhuy, a man behind the misssion and president Rotary Sun City.Each transit care ambulance has two policemen who work as paramedics. They have been trained by the Rotary Club Calcutta Sun City. More than 100 traffic sergeants of Kolkata Police have so far been trained in Basic Life Support System (BLS) for the project. The first phase of the project titled “Pre-hospitalization Trauma Care Management” got off the blocks earlier this year. “With 16 ambulances at our disposal, we are now ready to launch the second phase which is post-hospitalization care. We have started networking with hospitals for the purpose. It will gradually lead to the third stage which involves extending this trauma care management to the districts of West Bengal,” added Chakrabarti.

“For developing this facility, a host of constables have been trained in First Aid, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). They can provide victim artificial respiration in case of emergency,” said city police chief.

“In the trauma wards in four government hospitals, no accident victim can occupy the trauma bed more than 24 hours. After 24 hours, the patient will be shifted to other wards. As the beds will all be wheeled, it would be easier for them to shift the victim elsewhere. As it is already a success, we can always widen its ambit by including the private hospital,” said Homchowdhury. Timely trauma care intervention not only saves life but also prevent loss of limbs to a substantial extent.

quote:

However light-hearted you try to be about it, the loss of youth, and everything that goes with it, is quite a trauma.
Julian Clary