Just as the Police Akka programme was launched for the safety of college girls, the Coimbatore City Police is all set to launch the Police Bro programme this week to curb drug usage among college students. To recall, the Police Akka project was launched in October 2022, to create trust-based friendliness with college-going girl students and save them from falling prey to cybercrimes or any other offences.
For the same, the city police have roped in 59 women police personnel and they are visiting all the 60 colleges in the city frequently and interacting with the girl students as part of the project. Women police personnel were given training in hearing the problems of college girl students. Additionally, contact numbers of all the women police officers, or Police Akkas, have been displayed at prominent places inside colleges and girls' hostels. Every girl student should know the mobile number of the Police Akka, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
In the last eight months, they have conducted an awareness campaign in most of the colleges. While the programme is well-received among the girl students, the police have decided to launch a separate programme called Police Bro for college boys this month.
All about gaining trust
Speaking more on this, City Police Commissioner V Balakrishnan told The New Indian Express, "Through this initiative, the police officers who would have been appointed for a particular college used to meet the boys frequently to develop contact with them. After that, he started to receive information about the drug, contraband usage among the students."
"Also, the officer will further work to trace the supply network of the drugs and the contraband," the commissioner added. Further, he hoped that if there are students using drugs in a classroom, few students would oppose it and these students should be identified by the officers. "Once we build trust among them, they will start sharing information about not only drug and contraband usage but also any form of illegal activities take place inside the college premises," Balakrishnan added.
It is noted that following the sequel murders that happened in the city in February this year, police busted several groups under the anti-rowdyism drive. The operation revealed that most of them were connected via drug and ganja sales and the gangs were active among the students who have been studying a few colleges of the city.
Based on this finding, police planned to launch the Police Bro programme, said police sources. As per Balakrishnan, they planned to start the program at 83 colleges in the city, and young sub-inspector who would be trained accordingly, meet the students frequently. Two sub-inspectors will take care of the programme in each police limit.
