Now, Joint CPs to patrol city streets at night

Police officers up to the rank of Joint Commissioners will now have to do night duty to ensure maintenance of law and order in the national Capital.

The move comes within a week of Alok Kumar Verma took over as the chief of Delhi Police. Initially, officers up to the rank of Assistant Commissioners (ACP) had to do periodic night patrolling, a rule whose ambit was later extended to cover DCPs and Additional Deputy Commissioners of the police districts, a senior official said. Such officers are called night (gazetted officers) GOs and each police district has a mobile number assigned to the night GO, so that people in distress can have direct access to the officer.

At a meeting earlier this week, it was decided to extend the rule to cover Additional Commissioners (Additional CP) and even Joint Commissioners (Joint CPs), the official said. The Joint CPs, who are in-charge of police ranges with around two DCP/Additional CP-rank officers under them, will be supervising their duties as night GOs. For this, the Joint CPs will have to commit themselves to full-time night duty, as instructed by the police chief.

As per the rosters, ACP-rank officers are usually assigned night duty twice a week, depending on demographic factors in the areas under their jurisdiction, number of officials working under them and the crime rate.