If you are staying in Goa for some reasonable time than you would have surely witnessed the amount of growth in burglary and anti-social activities in the state for the past decade. Although the crime rate has been rising there is not enough police force to deal with the same in the state. To overcome this situation and to keep the burglars and anti-social elements at bay, the people of one village in Goa have formed a community policing. If you have not read about the same before then please read this inspiring story of a village called Navelim where people have joined the hands with their local town police to handle the situation of burglary and anti-social activity by forming their own policing community.
There are many stories of inspirations which get published on the local as well national media but this story of Policing community formed by the local villagers in the Navelim has set an example for the others.
According to the sources, following the growth in burglary and housebreaking events in the state the people of Navelim village has come together and joined the hands with the Margao town Police and formed the night patrolling teams of citizens to keep the burglars and anti-social elements at bay.
The Villagers of Navelim formed the policing community and them patrol the streets of the village between 11 pm to 4 am daily and in this efforts, they have managed to foil at least four attempts of robbery (house break-ins) and also managed to chase the anti-social elements away from the village.
One of the local teacher, Electric Carneiro, who is heading this mission, told the media that, they have formed two teams comprising of 10 dedicated volunteers from Mandapa and Moddi areas and they move around in the village till 4 am on a daily basis in two shifts from 11 pm to 2 am and 2 am to 4 am.
According to Mr Carneiro, this idea was conceptualized around three years back after the Superintendent of police (South Goa) held a meeting in the village and encouraged the formation of community and night-time patrolling in the village to prevent the robberies and housebreaking cases in the Navelim village.
The sources further said that it was Mr Carneiro and Jose D’souza first teamed up against the anti-social elements and house burglars. They started patrolling in Mandapa area and foiled a house break-in attempt in which they were attacked by the assailants who later made good their escape.
Although later on, Mr Carneiro had to give up this mission after his efforts started taking the toll on his health but soon he was joined by the more villagers and that lead to the beginning of new mission called Community Policing.
According to Mr Carneiro, the team also coordinates with the police night patrol teams and nakabandi teams at night and have found several cases of people moving suspiciously in the village at night and failed attempts to break into houses. He informed that the team also found cases where houses could become soft targets with door and windows being left open in the night and alert the owners and prevented crime.
Today Mr Carneiro and his team directly coordinate with the Margao town police and in event of any untoward incident, they immediately inform the police control room at Margao police station.
According to Mr Carneiro, there are two groups of burglars operational in the state at the moment. One is the professional burglars who make an attempt in the planned manner and second is a group of youth moving in a suspicious manner. The moment they spot any such (suspicious) activities going on in the village, they inform the police who takes care of the later part.
While speaking with the local newspaper The Navahind Times, Margao town Police Inspector C L Patil said that “the people of Navelim are doing a commendable job and have shown by example how people’s participation can help in tackling crime.”
According to Mr Patil, while the team does patrol on their own, they also seek the help of the police Roberts and have also helped chase down a criminal and the police to have extended full support to community patrolling team from Navelim.
He said that people from other parts of Salcete should also take a cue from people of Navelim and help police keep criminals at bay. He said that this will instil fear in minds of anti-social elements that if they are not caught by the police they will be surely caught by vigilant citizens. This will surely bring the crime rate down, he concluded.
