In a bid to raise the bar of policing and bring it to levels of developed countries, city police on Tuesday launched a victim assistance programme (VAP) here defining standard operating procedures for policemen to deal with crime victims.
The comprehensive programme launched on a pilot basis in select police stations focuses on strengthening people oriented policing and aims at ensuring better 'justice delivery' under the Criminal Justice System. "People have lot of expectations from the Criminal Justice system. A general belief prevails that no thrust is given on assistance to victims in it, who are main sufferers in the entire justice delivery system," Joint Commissioner of Police Ajay Tomar said. "Victim Assistance Programme is being launched on Tuesday in sector-I on a pilot basis, which focuses on providing all sort of relief/help to the victims, who is the sufferer...We would institutionalise it for more people oriented policing," Tomar said. There are around 20 police stations falling in sector-I covering posh city localities like Navrangpura, Satellite and Vastrapur where this programme comes into implementation from on Tuesday.
The programme intends to make investigating officers (IOs) and inspector of the concerned police stations more empathetic to the needs of crime victims.
Key features of plan are that police should patiently listen to victim even if he is in anger, should not raise jurisdiction dispute(territory), should empathise with him, in case of any injury should first offer victim medical aid, senior citizens, kids and women should not be called to police stations during investigations among others.
