Rescue service draws callers` ire

KARACHI, March 27: Technical glitches along with careless management of the police helpline 15 apparently have been denying access to most callers who desperately dial the rescue service for urgent help only to be redirected for confirmation of the dialled number or for virtual non-existence of the service, it emerged on Sunday. Dawn A number of callers speaking to came up with a common complaint that they had found the police helpline, known as Madadgar-15, ineffective whenever they dialled the rescue service. They said mostly they were informed through a recorded message that such a number did not exist. Similarly, some of them added, they were told through the same medium to contact telecom`s information service for `further assistance`. Dawn For over a month the situation has failed to move the authorities concerned to take urgent steps to fix the problem.Sharing his experience with , one of the frantic callers, Adnan Hussain, said he failed to get connected to the police helpline despite repeated attempts to seek urgent police assistance after his car was snatched at gunpoint in the south zone of the police organisational structure. A similar anecdote was shared by a resident of Federal B Area, Mujtaba Siddiqi, who made several attempts to access the emergency police service but failed. "On March 22, I witnessed some suspicious movement in my street with a few motorcyclists roaming around in the middle of the night. I tried to bring this into police notice before it`s too late by dialling 15 but was taken aback to learn through a recoded message that the much publicised number was not a valid number." While the authorities at the central police office and the home department admitted that the police helpline had emerged as a `failure` in recent weeks, Madadgar-15 SP Dr Najeeb Ahmed denied any such problem existed. "One-five [the helpline] is working well," he insisted in a brief response to Dawn queries but did not come up with facts or evidence to corroborate his contention. Set up to facilitate a direct contact between people and police, Madadgar-15 police helpline is aimed at addressing all types of complaints even those related to utility services. In addition to the victims of robbery, theft or other crimes, people in general having complaints even against water, electricity, gas and power utility are encouraged by the Sindh police official website to dial the rescue number and lodge their complaints. Despite several attempts to know the mechanism designed for the rescue service and the number of telephone lines available with the police for the purpose, there was no response from the authorities concerned. It was learnt that a number of complaints were formally or informally lodged with the Sindh home department by individuals against the helpline 15. Sharfuddin Memon, an adviser to the Sindh home ministry, said that in case of emergency and urgent threat, people called the home department complaint cell in the absence of an efficient `15` service. He said although the complaint cell was not mandated to attend to emergency calls, mostly people were helped out through different sources on humanitarian grounds. "In the modern day policing, rescue service call centre has emerged as a core of the entire police operation across the world," he said. "But unfortunately this has not been the case in Karachi, which leads to several problems related to policing and combating crime. The issue is needed to be addressed at the earliest." He found lack of willingness on part of the authorities concerned to make Madadgar-15 an effective service, which could positively affect the police response time and help building people`s trust in the police department. "The helpline 15 should be a part of the police command and control system, which in fact is a direct contact between the police authorities and a common man," he suggested.