Ludhiana: Transfer of cops takes toll on apps launched to check crime

Nikhil Bhardwaj

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Ludhiana, July 22

The Police Commissionerate, Ludhiana, has been taking initiatives for the welfare of general public and for controlling the crime time to time. Some of the initiatives were launched with huge pomp and show in the past, however, the irony is that those initiatives got thumbs down with the change of guards. These apps turned inactive, disappeared or developed technical glitches, reason being the transfer of officers who were at helms when these apps were launched.

Interestingly, on August 2, 2023, Chief Minister of Punjab Bhagwant Singh Mann, DGP Punjab Gaurav Yadav, then CP Ludhiana Mandeep Singh Sidhu launched this app in Ludhiana by holding an event. It was a first-of-its-kind initiative to address the issue of turbulent traffic and rising traffic violations in the industrial hub. App was supposed to serve as round-the-clock assistant for city residents as the app had offer array of services under one roof. Traffic Hawk app was considered a significant step towards improving the traffic situation in Ludhiana by engaging the community and users could contribute their observations and suggestions. User of the app could report traffic violation of any kind by uploading videos or photos. The traffic police after examining the evidence will issue a challan on the basis of vehicle’s number and the complainant will get an update as well. Another significant use of the app was user can alert the police for roadside assistance in case of any accident or untoward incident by just pressing the alert button and police officials would reach the place by tracing the victim’s location.

Now this app has disappeared from Play Store. Correspondent had installed this app last year but same is not working reason could be it’s deletion from play store or non-cooperation from the back end.

ACP (Traffic) Charanjiv Lamba when asked the reason of disappearance of this app from the App Store, he said since he is on long leave he is presently not having the charge of office so he cannot comment.

On February 25, 2021, then Police Commissioner Rakesh Aggarwal launched “Ghumshuda” app by putting to use technology to match missing persons with the recovered persons.

The app can be operated by any person by downloading it and the report about a missing person can be filed by just a click on a mobile. The police had updated the records of over 10 years of missing persons of all police stations of Ludhiana and so far, over 3,000 missing persons’ details had been uploaded in the app. The app also uses facial recognition to trace missing children.

The app also helped several missing persons in reuniting them with their families. However, with the transfer of Aggarwal, the police operating the app started paying less heed and now this app has disappeared from the digital space. Inspector Jasvir Singh in-charge Anti Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) and Gumshuda app said although this app is not active anyone can directly lodge a missing complaint at any police station at ease.

Taking another initiative on March 24, 2021, a mobile application to find the stolen and lost vehicles recovered by the police in the state was launched. The first-of-its-kind initiative of the Punjab Police developed in collaboration with the Ludhiana Commissionerate Police was launched by the Commissioner of Police (CP), Rakesh Agrawal. Initiative was the brainchild of then Director General of Police (DGP), Dinkar Gupta, the hi-tech and robust vehicle finder solution, “PP VFS”, was launched as a pilot project in Ludhiana. Although this app is still available on Play Store but app cannot be installed as it gives a message, “The app isn’t available for your device because it was made for an older version Android”.

The app would help the public to find out whether their stolen vehicle has been recovered in any of the police stations across the state “PP VFS” stands for the Punjab Police Vehicle Finder System.

On June 30, 2021, to make people feel safe while travelling alone in auto-rickshaws, the Ludhiana Police had launched a special drive to verify all the auto-rickshaws by equipping them with a unique ID and linking it with a mobile application ‘SafeAutoPb’.

Through the app, passengers could verify the credentials of the auto-rickshaw driver and interior-exterior of auto as well. Initially, data of hundreds of auto-rickshaws were updated but with the passage of time, this app was left abandoned on the digital space and not all the data of auto rickshaws was updated. Then Joint CP (Traffic) Deepak Pareek was the brainchild behind this app.