Economic opportunities are driving world population towards cities. The thriving concentration of population in the megacities that will continue in the future calls for providing safety and security to its citizens. The aggregation of resources and provision of services, while improving the quality of life, have the vulnerability to disasters (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and so forth) and terrorist attacks. It is the people who are the ultimate targets of terror attacks that cause not just death, but also fear and panic. Quick and accurate diagnosis of the situation, followed by prompt, appropriate and effective action with clear and transparent information to the public is the best protection. Effective disbursement of public information is difficult with dispersed authority and accountability. In the ensuing article, Praveen Dixit, former DGP (Maharashtra) discusses the subject of security of megacities.
Security of megacities is a prerequisite. In a terrorist attack at Paris in 2015, three suicide bombers struck outside Stade de France in Saint-Denis during a football match followed with several mass shootings and suicide bombings. 130 people lost their lives. In an another incident in November 2015, Islamist militants took 170 hostages and killed 20 of them in a mass shooting at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. Malian commandos raided the hotel and freed the surviving hostages. Since then, in the backdrop of these attacks, every place including stadium, five star hotels, restaurants, markets, companies, temples, synagogues, colleges and schools are vulnerable to dastardly acts. In a megacity, millions of people of different countries with variety of nationalities, religions, languages and castes are forced to live together for economic reasons. The urban conglomerates are increasingly becoming places where an individual has either lost his identity completely or partially.
This identity crisis leads to suspicion about everyone around. Increasingly, incidents are being reported where heinous crimes are committed by people around us and we become a mute spectator or victim of the same. In the above scenario, there are some important concerns that include traffic chaos, street-level crimes, terrorism, juvenile delinquency, religious divide, influx of illegal foreigners and cyber security.
Traffic Management
As the size of the cities gets expanded, people are forced to stay at faraway places. It is very rare that such far-flung localities are well planned from the point of view of mass transportation. As a result, heavy vehicles, two wheelers and pedestrians are forced to be on the same track causing accidents daily, taking a toll on valuable lives, or injuring the vulnerable. Unless there is immediate intervention, these incidents have the potential to create serious law and order situations.
Today, most of the roads are witnessing a situation where hardly 30% of them remain available to vehicles as the rest is occupied by hawkers, parked vehicles or other semi-permanent encroachments.
Regulating movement of goods carriers in cities is highly imperative. Truck terminals should be created in the outskirts and huge markets need to be suitably located around these. Goods can be moved in cities in small and medium vehicles.
As the number of small and commercial vehicles keep on increasing in the cities, parking has become an acute problem. The main reason behind this uncontrolled growth is the free availability of parking arrangements. It is necessary to levy heavy duty on these parked vehicles by evolving political consensus.
Traffic problems get complicated with competing number of processions, jatras, melas and fairs organized in a haphazard manner. Though they may have been organized in these places historically, it is advisable now that they move to suitable places and be permitted to be held strictly in open grounds or specially-created halls. Traffic situation cannot be improved only by increasing the number of traffic constables and signals. Traffic education since childhood and zero tolerance to traffic violations is the need of the hour.
As an immediate measure, a continuous survey should be conducted to identify vehicles on ground, and as a policy, all vehicles older than seven years should be prohibited from plying on roads.
Street-level Crimes Against Women and Senior Citizens
Increasing number of street-level crimes during day as well as night, particularly against women, senior citizens, kidnapping of children for wrong purposes, have created a sense of terror among the residents. Further investigations of these incidents reveal that some of the culprits belonged to respectable and well-to-do families. So it is not unemployment or poverty which is driving them to commit such offenses. The underlying causes include addiction to drugs, drinks, tendency to indulge inexpensive habits and frustration due to breaking of family bonds.
These causes need to be addressed effectively through social awareness and improved family involvement and value-based education. Technical intervention can contribute to a large extent in restoring confidence of people in police.
Maharashtra Police have launched PRATISAAD ASK, a mobile App that can be freely downloaded by visiting the App gallery. Once the person registers on this App, he can press the red social emergency button and get help from a registered relative and police beat marshal within a few minutes.
A number of places like building compounds in the city that are abandoned by their owners have become places for crime, including rapes, murders and shelter for addicts. Policy makers need to encourage demolition of such places and development of clusters. Equally alarming is the use of firearms or knives by individuals or by gangsters, for committing property offences. By adopting technological innovations in banking institutions, countries like Sweden have successfully managed to shift to cashless society. It is highly imperative to move to this platform urgently in order to reduce risk to life of gullible citizens. In the absence of these measures, we would continue to suffer from gang wars and their intra-gang feud. A section of them are used by terrorists and state sponsored organizations such as Pakistan’s ISI, taking disadvantage of their belonging to particular religion.
Terrorist Incidents
Neglect towards the above mentioned routine crimes provide steady ground for recruitment of vulnerable youth as foot soldiers by vested interests for carrying out terrorist activities. Additionally, perception of constant neglect and torture on account of religion, race, region, caste, language becomes the raison d’être for rising terrorist activities. Of late, increasing number of educated and technically qualified persons, including women, have been falling victims to such propaganda. They are being invited to launch a religious war or jihad being fought in the name of ISIS.
This perception of injustice needs to be constantly addressed through intellectual war by sober elements that see reason and are members of the same community. Precaution needs to be taken not to alienate any section of society. and inclusive growth needs to be attempted through conscious efforts. The police should also prepare themselves to fight these incidents through improved intelligence methods, and better combatting techniques.
Help from local people is an important measure to fight these incidents. Enlightened leadership in the Force is the sine qua non to prevent these activities. It is imperative that security personnel do not operate in isolation, but they involve friends of police from society “Police Mitra” in a big way by roping in people from all organized and unorganized sections of the society. In Maharashtra today, more than a hundred thousand citizens are associated with the police by registering themselves as Police Mitra (Visit App gallery, type PoliceMitra Maharashtra. Download the app, which is freely available) in nearby police stations. They belong to all religions, come from all age groups, and include ladies as well. With their help, police officers are able to percolate in areas which were prohibited some time ago and where no police officer dared enter. One of the important lessons learnt by the US after the 9/11 terrorist attack was that the State must have human intelligence, as depending exclusively on technical intelligence is far from satisfactory. These Police Mitras in Maharashtra provide valuable intelligence too.
Juveniles
Mention need to be made of increasing incidents of heinous crimes such as murders, rapes, robberies, thefts in which children who are not in conformity with the law are involved, or are culprits. In the atmosphere of violence surrounding them through exposure to violent scenes in electronic media, children as young as five are also indulging in similar incidents. Neglect by families at a young age is the fundamental cause for children indulging in it. The education system also needs to focus itself to ensure that there are no school dropouts.
According to a census survey conducted in 2011, India is the fourth country in the world where nearly one million children at the adolescent age are school dropouts. In case any child is absent from the school for more than a week, special efforts must be made, in association with the teachers, to bring them back to school by all means. Neglect in this regard is causing serious damage to the child, his or her family and to the society and nation.
Religion
Increasingly, religion is assuming a demonstrative nature. It is also being used as an instrument to divide people and create an atmosphere of suspicion about anybody not belonging to a particular religion. Even within a religion, there are acute feuds in various sects. While calling ourselves as secular, we continue to be extremely religious. It is high time we evolve political consensus on minimum civilized behavior, else a divided society cannot rise to increasing challenges of today and tomorrow.
Influx of Illegal Foreigners
Following several pull and push factors, India is witnessing regular influx of legal and illegal foreigners. Many legal foreigners find this country so attractive that they do not return to their home country. State as well as non-state organizations need to be particularly alert against this nuisance, as many a time, these persons also act as ‘agent provocateur’ besides indulging in smuggling of various items, including narcotics.
Cyber Security
Following the IT revolution and availability of social media, increasing instances of cyberspace being used for spreading disinformation are coming to light. Cyber offences are being conducted by even elite, and unfortunately, victims are also highly educated. Cyber awareness needs to be created through continuous efforts. Social media is increasingly being used to whip up social and caste tensions by spreading rumors and creating disruptions. Financial frauds are being attempted by compromising data in credit and debit cards. Criminals indulging in these crimes are located in neighbouring and far-off countries.
Thus the security of megacities can be improved by taking help from everyone, including security agencies. The big challenge is how far we succeed in increasing social regulation and eliminate identity crisis through innovative measures.
Praveen Dixit
Former DGP, Maharashtra
