Police officers up to the rank of joint commissioners will now have to compulsorily opt for night duty check on anti-social elements, The decision comes within a week of Alok Kumar Verma taking over as the new chief of the Delhi police.
Initially, officers up to the rank of assistant commiss-ioners (ACP) had to do periodic night patrolling duty, a rule whose ambit was la-ter extended to cover dep-uty commissioners (DCP) and additional deputy commissioners of the police districts, a senior official said.
Such officers are called night GOs (gazetted officers) and each police district has a mobile number assigned to the night GO so that locals in distress can have direct access to the officer. A person in distress can also approach to senior police officials round the clock.
At a meeting earlier this week, it was decided to extend the rule to cover additional commissioners (additional CP) and even joint commissioners (Joint CP), the official said.
The joint commissioners of police, 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 be physically available and commit themselves to full-time night duty, as instructed by the new police chief.
As per the rosters currently prepared in each district, ACP-rank officers are usually assigned night duty up to twice a week, depending upon the demographic factors in the areas under their jurisdiction, umber of officials working under them and the crime rate.
A DCP-rank officer may have to be on night patrol for up to twice a month, de-pending on similar factors.
