Tourism police yet to see light of the day

Neeraj Bagga

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Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 18

Even as the Amritsar Police Commissionerate had announced its plan to launch tourism police at the fag end of last year, the move is yet to see the light of the day.

While the authorities have built booths for the tourism police, the initiative doesn’t seem to be taking off any time soon. The Amritsar police had launched tourism police in the past too, but it could not function for long. Earlier, two attempts of setting up tourism police in 2002-2003 and 2008-2009 failed.

Apparently, proper procedures were not followed and suitable staff was not absorbed and trained for the job, which requires courtesy and politeness from policemen. The job of the tourism police requires policemen who are patient listeners and courteous in behaviour.

This time the city police identified 56 men and women officials who underwent a five-day orientation course at an institute in Gurdaspur. They were also trained in speaking English and Hindi to efficiently communicate with tourists. The tourism police project was put under ADCP Dhruman Nimbale.

In order to easily distinguish the tourism police policemen, white coloured badges with “Amritsar tourism police” inscribed in red and blue colours would to be placed on the upper portion of policemen’s arms.

As many as eight kiosks of Amritsar tourism police are being installed at key places, including the Golden Temple, the railway station, the airport, the bus stand, the Durgiana temple, Ranjit Avenue and the Bhandari bridge. These kiosks were to act as tourist felicitation centers providing all information of trains and flights schedule, nearest tourist circuits available, detail of tourist places in and around the city and obviously registering complaints of tourists besides helping them in distress.

However, all these grand plans still remain unrealised. It may be mentioned here that many incidents of robbery, misbehavior and sexual assaults have been reported on tourists, including foreigners. There is no denying that tourist footfall is high but tourism friendly atmosphere is missing. Tourists from around the world and across the country are visiting the city, but there is no attempt to make them feel comfortable and assist during their stay here.

A young Denmark national, who came to Amritsar regarding some research work in September 2013, was sexually assaulted. As soon as she alighted from train and crossed the road through footbridge to reach her hotel, an auto-rickshaw driver, identified as Vicky, sexually harassed her. Though the police arrested the accused within 12-hours, it brought a bad name to the city. A family of three from Uttarakhand, comprising Kulwant Singh, his wife Rupinder Kaur and father Arjun Singh, who was heading to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple, were brutally assaulted by four residents in a road rage instance last year.

Nimbale said about the delay in launching tourism police it was due to administrative reasons. Now, it will be in place before March 31. He said initially six kiosks out of eight would be operational. These will be equipped with walky talkies.