Within a day of starting their own Twitter account, more than 6,000 followers have joined the Mumbai Police Twitter handle. A group of six police officers will handle the Twitter account 24x7. The account went live on Monday with the handle @MumbaiPolice. The handle was inaugurated by Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis.
Along with the Mumbai Police Twitter account going live, Mumbai Police Commissioner Javed Ahmed went online on his Twitter profile @CPMumbaiPolice to solve people’s problems at a personal level. The Commissioner’s Twitter handle will be personally handled by Mr Javed.
The idea behind starting the Mumbai Police Twitter handle is to communicate with citizens and maintain transparency. The Mumbai Police handle tweeted: -"Why should police stations be the only place we meet Let’s meet here every day: #MumbaiPoliceOnTwitter.” Whereas Mr Javed said, “It is a platform to keep in touch with citizens every day to solve their issues.”
Police officials said a team of six police officers was given training for the last 20 days to handle Twitter and pass on messages to concerned police stations and provide prompt replies. If required, the team will be expanded.
Mumbai Police PRO, Crime Branch DCP, Dhananjay Kulkarni, said, “We have received great response from citizens on the very first day. We will keep check on every tweet and reply to it. It is really important to maintain transparency and with the help of social media, we can do so. We are working on a Facebook account of Mumbai police too. Soon, we will launch it. Citizens young and old are more attached to Facebook. According to our surveys, we need to start a Facebook account and we will do it soon.”
Meanwhile, Mr Javed, who has more than 3,000 followers, is following Bangalore city police, Bangalore traffic police, Commissioner of Bangalore, Delhi police, PMO India and Devendra Fadnavis.
