"Police response system collapsed": Bedi on Delhi hit-and-run case

NEW DELHI: Reacting to the recent Kanjhawala case, wherein a 20-year-old girl was hit by a car and dragged for several kilometres leading to her death, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi on Tuesday called for a need for the revival of the earlier police response system through police control room vans.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, Kiran Bedi said, "I think the response system of the police has collapsed. Because, of the earlier system of the police control room vans, where you had a mobile police force, there were police vans in hundreds, spread all over the city. It was a very well-established system, developed over the years by respective police commissioners. Sometimes, I do not understand when and why the system was dismantled. The police control vans were handed over and given to police, probably to strengthen their resource-- vehicular and manpower."

"Instead of the police control room vans, which were like the mobile police force, who were always moving around different corners, on getting a call, they would have responded to the incident," she added.

Ms Bedi has previously worked as the Joint Commissioner of Police of Delhi.

According to the former IPS officer, this shift in policy led to a slack-up in the response speed of the police.

"So I think, it was the consequences of a shift or a change in the policy of the police headquarters, when and why I don't know. But had there been police control room vans, they would have got the message, and the response time would not have been the way it was," Kiran Bedi said.

The former IPS officer also rightly stressed the social collapse in society.

"The way our youngsters are being groomed, parented and being educated and the way they are taking the law into their hands, getting drunk at night and overspeeding, this is a very serious concern," she said.

A 20-year-old girl, named Anjali was killed in the early hours of New Year after her scooty was hit by a car and she was reportedly dragged for several kilometres under the vehicle on the city's roads.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer District), Harendra K Singh, informed that five people had been arrested in the Kanjhawala case and a case under 304 A (death due to negligence) of the IPC was registered against them. They were produced before a court in Delhi's Rohini which sent them to three days of police custody for interrogation.