By H H Mohrmen
To maintain peace and prevent fallout of law and order in Meghalaya and particularly in Shillong; there are some issues that the government and its people need to look into. Meghalaya and its people are beginning to see progress so we cannot afford to see Shillong or any part of the state being disrupted again. In fact, for the common people the daily labourers, the hawkers and the street vendors, bandhs and curfew are too costly a price to pay for problems they did not create.
Issues that the government can think of are as simple as making certain facilities available to the public. The immediate need is for the police or the government to install emergency numbers for people to call when they are in trouble. If the government has common complaint numbers like the ones they have in the western countries, the recent scuffle which triggered the prolonged curfew could have been avoided. For example, if there is a common complaint number, the lady (as alleged) would not have had to call the youths in her community to teach the young men a lesson for eve-teasing her. She would have to just call the common complaint number to know that the police will take action against the culprit/culprits. Similarly, if we have a common complaint number, the young men who were attacked would have just called the number and know the police will come to rescue them and that they will be safe.
In Jowai too the skirmish between the customer and the salesman would not have escalated to a violent assault if there was an emergency number in place. The salesman who had unsuccessfully tried to convince the customer to refrain from smoking inside the shop would have just made sure that the act was recorded on a CCTV and then call the police to lodge a complaint against the errant customer and leave the rest to the police. Many of the clashes which have escalated to fist fights could have been avoided if we had been able to make this one simple arrangement.
As of now none of us know whom or where to contact if we witness a crime being committed right before our eyes. We should take a leaf from the policing manuals of other countries and install a common three digit complaint number which should be easy to remember, so that that even a five year old kid could easily access the facility. We already have 108 an emergency number to inform whenever one encounters an accident or needs immediate medical help which works very well and we all know that this simple three digit number has saved innumerable lives.
Now everybody carries a phone and some even have two or three phones with them so we would be able to prevent many crimes and avoid law and order situations in the future if we can only make this simple facility available to the public at large. And with the advent of technology maybe the police can even provide a WhatsApp number in which people can lodge a complaint if they see a crime being committed and also send photographs or video clippings. This will go a long way in helping the police arrest criminals and even prevent crimes from being committed.
In Jowai similar arrangements were made available to people of the district to make complaints against unsatisfactory and faulty government services when Arun Kumar Kembhavi was the DC of West Jaintia Hills District; it of course vanished with him being transferred from the district. This platform was very popular and the government was also able to address much of the public grievances using this simple technology.
The point is we are talking about Digital India but we are not using technology to our advantage; instead we see unscrupulous elements having a field day making the best use or abuse of the same technology to achieve their malevolent goals. The police know very well that now a large number of crimes are also being committed on cyber space and crime also originates in this same virtual space therefore the need of the hour is for the police to have a large presence in this space too. In fact now the challenging part of policing is to police the internet. The police know this very well and thank goodness it is not an impossible task either, because policemen and women can easily access these apps and sites.
I only frequent two social media platforms (Facebook and WhatsApp) and I can see the hatred, the venom spewing but of course I also see many good things in those platforms too. When I come to think of what I saw in these social media in the very recent past I cannot but appreciate Patricia Mukhim, the Editor of the Shillong Times for being able to gracefully take the attack that was lobbed against her in some of the social media platforms. She was called names and of course this is not the first time that she was called a traitor of the Jaidbynriew just because she has views and opinion which are not to her opponent’s liking.
We are also against disrupting peace and creating a law and order situation in the state and at times I have had disagreements with the Editor too, but we always agreed to disagree. It is only natural to have different views and opinions for the simple fact that no two humans are the same, not even twins. Sadly in Kong Patricia’s case it did not end there. Her opponents engaged in hitting below the belt and attacking her personally in the debate which is uncalled for and unbecoming of her opponents. We call ourselves defenders of the Jaidbynriew but we do not even want to engage in healthy and democratic debates (ka nia ka khot) not to speak of respect for our opponents which is a hallmark of the Khasi-Pnar warrior who would never in a duel hit his opponent in the back.
The very reason that the government has to ban internet access is also based on the fact that the internet can start or help create more incidents which also create law and order situations and disrupt peace in the area which is already in conflict. But we all have experienced that this is a double edged sword; it no doubt help quelled the disruption but it also has its adverse impact on those who use the internet for other purposes. One cannot deny the fact that many online transactions; be it for admission or other purposes which need OTP (one time pin) for verification were affected because of the ban on SMSes and the internet.
Therefore the other important issue in policing is the cyber space. The recent cases of innocent people being assaulted and even killed based on a simple WhatsApp message that child lifters are lurking in area is a case in point which should make the police look into this issue carefully. A lot of crime is already happening in the cyber space and the criminals can only be defeated by using the same technology that they use.
The police should rethink the way policing is done on the internet and should not also feel shy to take people’s help in trying to maintain law and order and peace in the state. We should not assume that everybody is a potential criminal; there are many law abiding citizens too who would like to help and they only need easy access to the police to help the police in their job and vide a common complaint number and WhattsApp number which will go a long way in helping the police to improve policing in the state.
One will not be able to imagine the confidence and the comfort that this simple complaint and the WhatsApp number will give to the citizens of the state because they know that they are just one call or one WhatsApp text away from the police or that the police are only one call or one WhatsApp text away from them. If this can be arranged which I think is possible; it will not only help people feel safe and secure but it will also improve police public relationship.