Social Media platforms and citizen Policing a Boon or a Bane for Police endeavours

If you are from Bangalore, you would have received a whatsapp message seeking support in searching a missing 12 year old boy (Not taking his name)

I received the first message on January 21st in the evening in my apartment community whatsapp group, the boy was missing from the coaching centre in Whitefield and was spotted in that area walking alone and has left the coaching centre alone instead of waiting for the parents to pick up, which was the routine.

Then the same message I received in 8 other groups in Bangalore, the next day, got a message with the latest finding of the boy and the chase he was giving the parents, police and citizen volunteers who were searching for him in the vicinity, going through volumes of street camera videos, this turned into a massive chase as he managed to dodge the search party twice. The chatter in all groups with possible solutions and assumptions were running high, across 9 groups.

Towards day two in the afternoon, I received another message to join the WhatsApp group formed to mobilise citizen support "Search #####", I was scrolling through Twitter and the handle "#search #####", this was trending, during my evening walk in the apartment complex, this was the topic being discussed, as most of them had joined the group and were getting the details of the trail the boy was taking. I then started getting messages to "Search #####" in groups in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi.

Then the video of the appeal from the boy's mother was trending in all social media platforms. The volunteer groups amplified the effort by putting in updates, sharing street camera footage of the boy where he crossed few locations, then he was last seen on a BMT bus to the Majestic bus stand, the search moved to the central railway station of Bangalore and am sure the Police all this while was doing all required efforts as per their protocol, no updates to the community but I am sure they were in touch with the parents.

On January 24th in the morning at around 6:30am all the WhatsApp groups were buzzing with the good news of the boy being traced and was in custody of Hyderabad metro station management, at Nampally, waitiing to be united with the family who were flying in from Bangalore on the 10:15am flight. Sigh of relief and all groups were sharing the updates of where all the boy managed to travel and how he  finally reached  Hyderabad Nampally Metro station. 

The lady, who found the lonely boy at the Nampally Metro station early in the morning looking confused to buy a ticket, quickly identified the boy who was trending on the social media and WhatsApp, she managed to take the metro staff into confidence and held the boy while informing the parents and confirming the boys identity, she also made the parents speak to the boy and a short video of her educating the boy, "that it not good for young kids to travel alone in public transport  without elders" was trending, I was amazed the way this search has panned out and thanks to the Social media (Whatsapp University is the Hero of this), amongst all the messages and debates on why the boy did what he did (Topic for another article), who is to be blammed, how the situation needs to be dealt from now. 

I was keen to understand how the lady who identified the boy at an odd hour managed this, then came a message in few groups, the lady is a resident of the area where the messages where amplified and as luck may have she was following the social media and had all the details, she happened to  travell coincidently the night of January 24th from Bangalore to Hyderabad and was at the metro station to buy her ticket when she found this boy alone.

 Manifestation of the efforts by all citizens and the power of information, did the trick. 

The question we should ask, should the Police use this medium for all the missing cases which come to them, use social media, WhatsApp groups and citizen volunteers.

The NCRB’s annual report ‘Crime in India’ for the year 2022 was released on 3rd December. The data shows that 83,350 children (20,380 male, 62,946 female and 24 transgender) were reported missing last year. (The Print 2023)

Further, a total of 80,561 children (20,254 male, 60,281 female and 26 transgender) were united with their families.

There is a spike in the number of missing cases in 2022 by 7.5%. There are adults who go missing owing to mental health challenges and this number is growing, Police and the administration with limited staff and voluminous other law and order cases is not able to address the missing cases.

With CCTV cameras installed by Government and Private establishments, the usage of social media and the speed of information flow, can give heft to find the missing in the golden hours (First 24 hrs) are crucial.

The Police and administration need to leverage the power of community in these cases and there have been use cases of community involvement in law and order during the robberies and communal tensions, this is before the WhatsApp and social media came into existence.

I am reminded of the war cry, in my colony through the night as few elders would take turns and walk around in the night in shifts and batches appealing #Jagateraho

One government (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport) entity took the learnings from this incident and quickly issued guidelines to all the units on un accompanied minors travelling alone in busses and when they are allowed and if found along the protocol to follow or asking the details of the guardians and parents, this shows that the public service organisations are agile and quickly trying to reiterate the learnings to plug the gaps.

Hopefully the people on the side of Dial 100 are listening #Suno

Citation

The Print :

https://theprint.in/india/more-than-47000-children-missing-in-india-71-are-girls-shows-ncrb-data/1880048/?amp