Satyapal Singh wanted to become a scientist – he did his MPhil in chemistry – before he joined the IPS (Maharashtra cadre, 1980 batch). Singh’s first posting was assistant superintendent of police of Nasik. He then went on to become the superintendent of police of Buldhana.

Prior to taking up the very critical assignment of heading the Mumbai police, he was Maharashtra’s additional director general of police. Of course, he is at home in Mumbai, having served as the joint commissioner of police (crime) in the metro.

In an interview conducted by Vinod Pathak for Governance Now, Singh speaks about how the Mumbai police is devising innovative solutions to the perennial challenges before the force. Edited excerpts from the interview:

You took over on August 23, 2012, in what can be termed tumultuous times for the Mumbai police force. Your biggest challenge was the low morale of the police after the Azad Maidan riots. How have you dealt with it in these 15 months?

I took charge of Mumbai police barely 10 days after the most unfortunate events of August 11 at Azad Maidan. This was a one-of-its kind incident in the history of Mumbai police. Policemen were beaten up, lady constables were molested and the entire police force was demoralised. There were innumerable television debates and strongest criticisms of the riotous events and people started to wonder about the kind of security the common person can expect when policemen themselves were beaten up so brutally. For me the biggest problem was how to re-motivate the police force, give them the courage and determination to go back to their work.

To restore and boost the trust and confidence of the public in their police, we first started the ‘takrar nivaaran diwas’ (grievance redressal day) every Saturday. This was a unique experiment and experience not just for the police force but also for the people in general. From an officer of the rank of assistant commissioner right up to me, the commissioner, we sit at different police stations every Saturday for grievance redressal. To ensure good participation we publicise this event two-three days before on our website and in the press. The press, I must point out, doesn’t care much because it is more interested in negative stories. We notify the names of the visiting senior officers outside the police station and invite whoever has a complaint to present the same to the officer.

This has had a very positive impact. Let me give you the latest official data. In 2011, the government received 5,000 complaints from the general public. That figure has gone down to just 500 by the end of 2013, a 90% drop. The complaints sent to the home minister have reduced from 500 to 11. With this people found a mechanism to get their complaints heard and solved. Total complaints against the police, which come to my joint CPs or me, have dropped by 30 percent after setting up this mechanism.

Has this reduced the fear of approaching the police to some degree?

To address that, we launched another unique outreach measure simultaneously. We all know that people are scared to even go to the police station, much less lodge complaints. So, we put up 3,700 complaint boxes outside various public places such as schools, temples, mosques, bus stops, railway stations, etc. where people can drop their complaints anonymously if they so wish. We open these boxes daily. Initially special staff handled this task but because of the increased volume of complaints and staff shortage, we have asked the DCPs to handle them.
 
The Mumbai police’s social media lab is making waves…

Yes, after these two measures, for the first time in the history of any Indian police force, we set up a social media lab. Till today no other police force in India has this facility. This is a unique project where we know what is happening on the internet. I would not call it monitoring but we follow what is happening... what people are doing on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites – to know the pulse of the people. Twice a day we put out a report of what is happening where. We check the impact of national and global incidents on the people and social and religious groups in Mumbai to know what they are thinking. We have a very well trained team – they were trained by Microsoft and Google. This team works round the clock.

Recently, I was at the national conference of directors general (DGs) in New Delhi (November 22-24) in Delhi. We (Mumbai police) came to know on November 20 that people are going to congregate at Jantar Mantar on November 22 to protest against Tarun Tejpal. This was not known to the Delhi police. I told the commissioner of police, Delhi, about it. On November 24 a bike rally was planned in Hyderabad which we knew about sitting here in Mumbai. We then informed the Hyderabad police so that they could make adequate arrangements. Because of the media lab, we came to know about a flash mob in Bangalore and alerted the city police there.
 
So can we say that though there is some amount of unease within governments about the disruptive role of social media, the Mumbai police is using it as a force multiplier?

Yes, definitely. We constantly keep focussing and refocussing on how to do this better, but yes, this (social media lab) has become a big tool for us. There is another weak link in policing and that is intelligence collection. So, again, in another first for any city police, we started the Mumbai Police Intelligence School last year. It completed one year on November 30. Here we train our officers and constables with the help of the Intelligence Bureau (IB). This not meant only for the Mumbai police but for the entire police force of Maharashtra. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources or time to train forces of other cities though.

Mumbai has seen repeated terror attacks and is a constant fixture on the terror radar…

Yes, that threat is perpetual and we do whatever we possibly can to keep Mumbai safe. So, in another first, we constituted anti-terrorism cells at every police station of the city. Their job is exclusively to collect intelligence for terror-related activities. They cannot be deployed for investigation or for land order duties without the permission of the joint CP. Not even an additional DCP or DCP can assign any other work to this cell. This has decentralised intelligence gathering and our preparedness and response to situations.

Another area of concern is crimes against women. After the December 16 gangrape in Delhi, we took a very big initiative in Mumbai. We don’t have much problem regarding it as Delhi but we reached out to the common citizens and engaged them in activities to reduce risks to personal safety of women. Very creative one-minute films were made for public awareness that have been appreciated by all.
 
Who made them? Were they internally made?

Our officers participated in the filmmaking where we also roped in experts. We made one-minute films on anti-terrorism on the same lines. It was called ‘Mumbai ke liye ek minute’ (One minute for Mumbai). Because Mumbai is a constant target of terror activities, we identified more than 700 potential targets for terror in the city. For example, after the Shakti Mill rape incident, we identified all the isolated and “dark” places in the city to avoid future such tragic incidents.

In every locality we identified all the stakeholders of the area who would be affected by an untoward incident. If a bomb explodes, the people who work there become the first victims... the people who have businesses, who have offices, who live there. We made a list of all such stakeholders who will alert us to any happening and who will be the first persons to react to an incident. So what should they do, who should they inform, we have put all that into a written-down SOP (standard operating procedures). This again has not been done anywhere in the country. We have contacted schools, colleges, hospitals, commercial complexes, security guards, taxi, auto and bus drivers etc. and have set up standard advisories to be followed. We call this initiative security conclave.

In fact, just 12 days before the terror attack on a mall in Nairobi, Kenya, we had invited the owners of all malls and multiplexes in Mumbai and enquired about their security readiness in case such an incident happens in Mumbai. We have designed 20 security parameters for places like malls and multiplexes and we are planning to give each place a security grading based on how they measure against each of these 20 parameters. Once we grade a mall or multiplex on its security preparedness the people will have a choice of going or not going there. This can have a big impact on footfalls and hence proper security will become a business necessity. Of course, we have not yet decided one way or the other on making the grading public as we have to consider many factors before we do that, but the fact that we want to grade them will make owners of such places beef up their security measures. Otherwise, we have told them that we’ll make their (lax) security arrangements public, which will adversely affect their business. Because, let’s get this straight, when we look at the security arrangements at public places and we find a particular place is not up to mark, we do have a duty to inform the public as well.

A security grading by the police can make or break a mall….

Yes, that’s why we are still working on that, talking to everybody. So, these are some of the basic things we have done to make Mumbai safer. We have a well-equipped, well-trained and well-motivated police force. But we cannot give you the guarantee that Mumbai police is immune to dangers. I feel very satisfied. We have a lady police officer in every police station, which was not the case earlier. We have made their mobile numbers public so that any woman in trouble can give them a call anytime. Therefore, the trust of women in the police has gone up and even small incidents are getting reported. Therefore, we cannot say that crime has gone up but statistics have gone up. Citizen alertness has increased so people are approaching the police to complain.