Residents claim ban enforcement weak, calls to cops went unheeded

While residents claimed that the police were lax in enforcing the ban, the cops alleged that the locals did not cooperate especially in cases where people bursted crackers from their terrace and balconies.

Despite a blanket ban on firecrackers across the city both by the Delhi government and the National Green Tribunal, loud bangs of fireworks reverberated across neighbourhoods filling them with smoke on Saturday.

While residents claimed that the police were lax in enforcing the ban, the cops alleged that the locals did not cooperate especially in cases where people bursted crackers from their terrace and balconies.

Many resident groups complained that complaints made to the helpline reporting cracker bursting were ignored.

Sujatha Nair, a resident of south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, who is also the founder member of a citizens’ group, ‘War against Pollution’, said she had called police control room number reporting cracker bursting instances around Kishangarh area at least thrice but no action was taken.

“The police vans were nowhere to be seen. How were they imposing the ban? Apart from my own complaint we had many members who have also tried to reach the police numbers to report cracker burning in their respective neighbourhoods, but no action was initiated,” Nair said.

However, a senior police officer, who didn’t want to be named, said whenever they received specific inputs about firecrackers, they responded and registered cases.

“But we cannot act when we aren’t informed where exactly crackers were being burst. For example, if someone was doing it from their apartment balcony and the caller didn’t point out the exact flat number to us, it was difficult for us to identify and act against such miscreants,” said the police officer.

Bhavreen Kandhari, environmentalist and member of Warrior Moms, a pan-India initiative of environmentally conscious mothers fighting against air pollution, said officials on helpline numbers were asking complainants to locate exact addresses.

“There was non-stop crackers all around and when I called 112 (Delhi’s single emergency helpline number) they insisted that I should be out at 11.50pm, searching for the exact address. When I told the official on the line that the sound of crackers was coming from Kotla and Lodi Colony and their teams should do a vigil there, he slammed the phone,” Kandhari said.

The police officer, however, said their efforts were hampered in many instances when callers complained about crackers, but didn’t want to follow it up or be identified to assist the police in pointing out the miscreants.