Cops wade through knee-deep water inside police station

Mumbai: The men in uniform, who are expected to come to the rescue of people stuck in rain, are themselves struggling to get work done at this police station.

The officers attached to the Nehru Nagar police station in Kurla are wading through knee-deep water which has entered the premises on Tuesday. The detection room, control room and writer room of the police station were all flooded, with the staff shifting records from these rooms to the drier parts of the station.

“When water started accumulating in the area, we moved all important documents and kept them on top of cupboards to save the record from getting damaged,” said a police officer.

In fact, the entire area around the station was flooded, which made the staff members and visitors keep their vehicles about 100 metre away from the station and then navigate through the knee-deep water.

A police officer attached to the Nehru Nagar police station fumed, “This is a very difficult situation. One cannot work sitting in knee-dip dirty water.”

Another constable echoed a similar opinion. “The police station is located in a low-lying area and therefore the entire area gets flooded whenever it rains heavily. The accumulating water also brings with it all kinds of garbage. The biggest problem is that the washroom inside the police station was also flooded, which made it unusable,” she said.

Another woman constable said, “This happens multiple times almost every year. Last year, at least thrice the police station was flooded during monsoon, making it difficult for us even to sit in there.”

Senior inspector Chandrashekhar Bhabal said that the personnel who are assigned duties at the station house are required to wear plastic boots and sit on tables. “Our work continues round-the-clock. We are required to work in knee-deep water. Water-logging is a regular problem in our police station,” he sighed.

The police station is located at a lower level and during heavy rains and high tide, a nearby nullah starts overflowing and that water too reaches the police station compound, said head constable NL Bhoi, who allots duties to the members of the constabulary attached to Nehru Nagar police station.

Similarly, Vinoba Bhave Nagar police station in Kurla also witnessed waterlogging on Tuesday. “The water has not entered the police station but there is waterlogging at the entrance and on the entire stretch of the road. We parked vehicles few metres away and walked in the water. If there is heavy rain for more than two hours and high tide is also at the same time, then water comes inside the police station,” said senior inspector Rajiv Chavan of the Vinobha Bhave Nagar police station.