The birth of a police station in south delhi

Desperate times call for desperate measures. It took the death of 173 people in the 26/11 terror strikes last year for the ministry of Home Affairs to realise the need for better ground policing in the capital, reports Vijaita Singh.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. It took the death of 173 people in the 26/11 terror strikes last year for the ministry of Home Affairs to realise the need for better ground policing in the capital.

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A city with a population of more than 1.7 crore had one police station for every 1.2-lakh people. Which essentially meant for every 425 people there was one policeman.

After 26/11, 40 new police stations were sanctioned. Sunlight Colony was one of them. Located near Ashram in southeast Delhi, the police station started functioning from September 21 this year. It has a strength of 110 but is still short of 128 policemen.

The policemen on duty here are responsible for providing security to over 3 lakh people in the area. A commando is positioned at the gates of the police station at all times. The police station is entirely computerised and boasts of a swanky maalkhana (the place where case properties are kept).

What is now a police station, used to be a police post. Most of the building was lying vacant. If a crime occurred in the vicinity, the matter would be reported to the New Friends Colony police station five kilometres away.