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Pune rural police plan aims to prevent youth from turning to crime
Pune rural police will soon launch ‘Mission turning point’ programme which aims to prevent youth involvement in criminal activities
PUNE Similar to the cleanliness mission that aims to keep our surroundings spick and span, the Pune Rural Police will soon launch ‘Mission turning point’ programme which aims to prevent youth involvement in criminal activities.
The concept was coined by the additional superintendent of police Mitesh Ghatte and focuses on counselling for school-college students and preventing them from engaging in crime or illegal activities.
Ghatte said, “It is easy to register cases against youths and put them behind the bar. But considering their age and career, we have decided to launch this programme through which they can get counselling to walk on the right path.”
Police have identified many youths for making threatening reels on social media in the past few months. All these profiles were tracked down by the police.
In singer Sidhu Moosewala’s murder case, Pune rural police found that many college-going youngsters are blindly following accused Santosh Jadhav on social media. Involvement of college-going students in sexual criminal activities has also increased over a period of time. College-going youths are ‘cutting birthday cakes using swords.’ Hence under the initiative through counselling impact of legal action will be conveyed to them.
While investigating some of the cases mentioned above, police found that many of these youngsters belong to impoverished backgrounds and are exposed to illegal activities in their surroundings. Hence, they cannot differentiate between good and bad. This trend is dangerous and a lot of youths have been influenced and most of them don’t know the dangers associated with their action. Hence Pune rural police have decided to counsel them to deviate from any kind of criminal activities.
Ghatte said, initially we have decided to tie up with schools and colleges in Narayangoan and Manchar and arrange counselling sessions. Under this mission, police have also decided to share with them the harsh reality of criminals and crime. After the initial results of the mission, the police have decided to approach every school and college in the district to counsel youths.
Dr Manish Bajpayee, child and adolescent psychologist, welcomed the move by Pune rural police. He said, “Police should include parents in this mission. Because they are the only ones who can make their child disciplined.’’
He said exposure to the web and gadgets is pushing children towards crime. “Many parents are easily giving gadgets to their children at an early age. They should think twice before doing so,” he said.
