Endeavour
Social Media for Good Policing
A desk in a police station is covered with a pile of foreign and Bangladeshi books, magazines and office files. The PC is constantly on the move from the last few weeks and officers are busy either with a Facebook page or receiving phone calls to get updated information on crimes and other untoward incidents in the city. Ordinary citizens express their relief that somebody of authority actually cares.
For any citizen living in Dhaka, this busy sight of a police station will seem quite unusual. To many people it might sound like a fairy tale. But this is no hoax. According to Mohammad Mostofa Jaman, a senior lecturer at the American International University Bangladesh, “People who are living in Uttara, are truly getting the service through a Facebook page and mobile application.”
The Facebook page named “Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Patrol Uttara” was opened by the ACP Patrol of Uttara division, Tahseen Mashroof Hossain on September 9, this year to get information regarding crimes and other problems in the vicinity. At the end of two months, the page has already received nearly 19,000 likes. The police are trying to provide service against complaints within the shortest possible time to the 700,000 residents of Uttara.
“It is true that people have grievance over what the police did in the 200 years of its colonial and post colonial history" says ACP Hossain. "They have great expectations and with our limited resources, we have tried our best to do what we can. The problem is huge to solve it in a day. But we took a small initiative through Facebook and we are getting positive responses from the people,” he adds.
Even today in different parts Dhaka city, people are quite convinced that crime is relentlessly on the rise. And they believe the police do not pay any heed to complaints of the ordinary citizen. Shootings, carjacking, robbery have become constant menaces of city life. ACP Hossain wanted to change this bleak scenario by starting a facebook page to be connected to people 24 hours.
The idea of opening a Facebook page popped up in Hossain's mind after he followed the Arab Spring movement and learnt that the social media had the power to persuade millions of people within a short time. “I discussed the idea with our Deputy Commissioner of Uttara Zone, Nisharul Arif. He liked the idea a lot and took me to the Police Commissioner, Benazir Ahmed.” The commissioner was highly impressed by the new idea and permitted him to open a page to serve the community.
The cell phone numbers of all six police stations are given in the page. In case of emergencies, people can contact police officials rather than coming to any of the six stations. The phone lines are open 24 hours, thus anybody can reach a police officer any time they need. The Uttara police designed a squad with its best officers, calling it the “Quick Response Team” to help the people in the shortest possible time.
Facebook users can directly get in touch with ACP Hossain through the page. He personally oversees and replies to complaints and queries through comments and messages. “You are the tax payer, so it is our duty to serve you in your need. For that reason, I reply to each and every comment and phone call,” says Hossain.
It was a big surprise for college student Ashmita Khan to see a police officer on Facebook asking for crime related information. “I went through the page and what I found was quite surprising. People were posting complaints and getting instant replies. Most of them seemed content with the services they were receiving through the social media initiative,” says Khan. She believes the idea of an interactive platform should be replicated in every big city of the country, “it will surely encourage people to share their problems and will wipe out the miscommunication between the police and citizens,” she adds.
ACP Hossain, with the help of two web designers, Tariq Mahmud and Monsur Hossain, has designed a new application named 'DMP Uttara' for smart phone users. On October 8, Uttara police opened the application for public use. “People can download it from Google apps store and it is completely free of charge. I want to salute the designers. They solely did it to help the people and in return they charged only Tk 500 for this highly useful application,” says Hossain.
According to the page, the mission of the Uttara police station is “to make Uttara the safest division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.” ACP Hossain says that there is still a need to add some more features to the smart phone apps to achieve the goal. “In any part of the city, if you look at police officers, you will feel the agency has changed a lot. And I believe chronologically, allegations against the police are decreasing every day. So in that sense you can say that our step is a small part of this enormous change.”
Many who live Uttara have echoed the need for the service in other police stations as well and they believe that Bangladesh Police needs more officers like Hossain to provide such efficient services in every corner of the city.
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