Beyond call of duty: Police turn heroes, saviours for hungry, homeless in city

Around 7.30 pm on Thursday, a 67-year-old woman called the Mehrauli police station and informed them that she was alone at Chhatarpur home and without electricity

Around 7.30 pm on Thursday, a 67-year-old woman called the Mehrauli police station and informed them that she was alone at Chhatarpur home and without electricity because of some fault and non-availability of an electrician owing to the nationwide lockdown.

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A head constable, along with his colleague, immediately reached her home and restored the electricity connection themselves.

On Friday again around 1 pm, the Netaji Subhash Place police station got a call from a woman, a resident of Shakurpur, who said there was no food at her house and that her family of four had not eaten anything in the last 24-hours. A police van was immediately dispatched to her house, and food packets arranged through NGOs and government agencies.

From enforcing the 21-day nationwide lockdown in the city to educating people about the Sars-Cov-2 outbreak and its precautionary measures, the 80,000 plus city police personnel have been donning new roles everyday – locating homeless, destitute, people deprived of food and assisting locals in distributing medicines, cooked and raw food items.

“There has been a decline in calls related to crime in the city due to the lockdown. Almost all the staff of police stations have been tasked with being extra careful and facilitating needy and hungry people with food packets and other basic items. Besides this, we will also effectively enforce the lockdown and educate the public about it. The policemen also coordinate with NGOs, RWAs and even individuals or organisations, who want to serve deprived and distressed people,” said joint commissioner of police (southern range) Devesh Chandra Srivastava.

“Around 40 calls so far has been received from people who told us that they were hungry or did not have essential items to cook at home. The calls were transferred to the police stations in areas where the callers lived. Their details were also shared with volunteers distributing food and essential items,” said deputy commissioner of police (licensing) Asif Mohammad Ali, who is supervising the helpline.

This new arrangement of feeding and helping destitute by police personnel started on Thursday, after a meeting the force’s top brass had following messages and videos on social media, which showed how homeless and poor people are facing difficulties and surviving without food due to the lockdown.

“A message was circulated among police personnel through various mediums, asking them to help and feed such needy people in whatever way possible. The station house officers (SHOs) of some police stations arranged food and medicine packets and distributed them among people living in jhuggi clusters,” said deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara) Dinesh Kumar Gupta.

Around 50 personnel of south district’s special staff and narcotic cell have volunteered to donate some part of their salary to feed poor people in many areas of south Delhi, added deputy commissioner of police (south) Atul Kumar Thakur.

“They distributed cooked food to 150 families on Thursday and another 250 on Friday,” he said.

As the photos and videos of police officers providing food packets to poor people started circulating on social media, many individuals, NGOs and organisations began approaching the police through calls and offered to help.

On Friday, the SHOs of all the police stations in the city were asked to prepare a list of daily wagers, homeless, and migrants in the respective areas, approach such families and facilitate them with arranged cooked food packets and other raw food materials. They were also asked to seek supports for such distributions from religious establishments, various resident and market associations, NGOs, affluent residents, who wanted to volunteer, and work in coordination with the members of various hunger helpline opened by the Delhi government.

In south Delhi, the list of people who wanted to volunteer was shared with the beat staff and timings as well as place were fixed for distribution of cooked food and raw items. Hundreds of families who needed them were given food ration — 5 to 10 kg rice, 5-10 kg flour, 2 kg pulse, cooking oil, salt and spices — that was collected from various volunteers.

“The lists of Good Samaritans along with their contact numbers are also being shared with DCP Ali, who is supervising the Delhi Police’s helpline. As many people call for help on the helpline, our teams are working to ensure that nobody sleeps hungry in the city,” added Srivastava.

Srivastava said that the mess of some police stations is also being used to cook food for needy people living in the respective areas.