Pune: Housing Society Chairman, Secretary to be made Special Police Officer to keep watch on people

Pune Police made people do sit ups.
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Sumit Singh
Pune, April 16, 2020: As the number of Coronavirus cases are rising in Pune every day, Pune city police are facing manpower crunch to keep an eye on people everywhere. Therefore, Pune city police are going to appoint chairman/secretary of housing societies as Special Police Officer (SPO) to keep watch on people who violate the lockdown order.

Joint Commissioner of Police (law and order) Ravindra Shisve told Punekarnews.in, “There are provisions in the law to appoint special police officers (SPOs) when more manpower is required. These SPOs will inform their society members about various instructions related to lockdown. They will also inform the local police station about people who are seen violating the lockdown rule like not staying at home, or going for walk, coming out of home unnecessarily etc.”

According to police, only non-political persons will be appointed by the Zonal Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) based on the recommendation of the local police station. “Earlier retired police/Army officers used to be appointed but now society secretary/chairman will be appointed as people will listen to them. Also, non-political persons will be only appointed. We will issue a badge to the SPOs which will be valid in their society”, he added.

DCP (Zone 4) Pankaj Deshmukh said, “The SPOs will support the local police station and report lockdown violation incident. We are also monitoring roads, chowks through CCTV cameras. People should take things seriously and stay at home as cases of Coronavirus are increasing in Pune.”

Senior Police Inspector Ramesh Sathe, in-charge of Hadapsar police station said, “it is a very good decision as we have a shortage of manpower and people themselves will help to their societies. Now the chairman/secretary will have an additional responsibility to save people of their society from Coronavirus.”

According to the District Health Office (DHO) between 7 pm April 14 to 7 pm April 15, there has been an increase of 63 new cases of Coronavirus Positive in Pune district. Out of 437, a total of 369 are from Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) while 42 are from Pimpri-Chinchwad areas, and 18 are from Pune rural areas, while 7 are from Pune cantonment and one from Khadki cantonment.