Reporter’s Diary: Why police decided to give up a phone number with ‘174’

Police stations across Tamil Nadu have been given Closed User Group (CUG) mobile numbers apart from the regular landline phones, which is meant for both internal communication and for people to call them.

One station in the city limits, however, removed the CUG number, apparently because of three digits — 174. This number gives reminds the officers of section 174 of Code of Criminal Procedure under which cases of suicide and unnatural death are registered.

Officers are so used to this section to an extent that any suicide for them as a ‘174’ case. While this reporter has tried several times to call the police station on the CUG number in vain, he managed to get an alternative number to enquire about a criminal case recently.

When he casually asked about the ‘unreachable’ CUG number, the officer said that the number was removed after the station began to receive a lot of suicide cases. The personnel at the station believe that changing the CUG number might make things better for them.