All police stations in Kerala to become child-friendly: DGP

In a bid to create an atmosphere where children can lodge complaints without fear, Kerala Director General of Police Loknath Behera on Saturday virtually inaugurated child-friendly centres at 15 police stations in the state.

Behera, addressing the event, said that the Kerala Police are trying to create an atmosphere in the police stations where children can come to lodge complaints without any fear. The event was also attended by other senior police officials thorough video conferencing.

The concept of child-friendly police stations was launched in 2006 with the aim of making those children happy who accompany people coming to police stations for various purposes. Such centres will help children and others to understand the workings of police stations and the work of police officials and to avoid the gap between police, children and the community.

At present, 85 police stations in the state have such children-friendly centres. The state police chief said the system will be implemented in 12 more police stations within three months. He said that the Kerala Police aims to launch child-friendly centres in all police stations.

The DGP inaugurated the child-friendly centres at Chadayamangalam, Pathanapuram, Anchal in Kollam district, Infopark police station, Cyber Police Station, Women’s Police Station in Ernakulam Ottapalam, Malampuzha in Palakkad district, Nilambur, Tanur, Changaramkulam in Malappuram district, Panur in Kannur district and Adhoor, Rajapuram and Badiyadukka in Kasaragod district.

The Ollur Police Station SHO in Thrissur city received the Home Ministry’s 2019 Award for the Best Police Station in Kerala. Pathanamthitta and Mannuthi police station house officers shared the Chief Minister’s 2019 trophy for the best police station in the state.

Pampady Police Station in Kottayam district won the second prize and Thampanoor police station in Thiruvananthapuram city won the third prize.

The state police chief inaugurated this year’s activities of the Hope project, an initiative taken by the police to help children to re-appear for examinations who fail in Classes 10th and 12th. Last year, 522 students who failed the Class X examination were trained to write exams under the scheme. 465 of them passed in all subjects.

The state police chief also inaugurated a new project “Puthanuduppum Pusthakavum” to find out children in need and to provide them clothes, books and study materials. The project is being implemented through the Student Police Cadet Volunteer Core, a voluntary organisation formed to include alumni who have undergone student police cadet training.

The police chief presented prizes to the winners of short film and photography competitions organised on the occasion of National Police Memorial Day.

The state police chief also released a book titled ‘Professor Pointer - The Answer to Cyber Issues’ written by artist Nandan Pillai under the auspices of Cyber Dome to shed light on the pitfalls of the cyber world.