Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Madhya Pradesh police seem not to be caring at all about the commuters on state highways, as most of the police outposts remain deserted. The cops were either not deployed or were ‘missing’ in 16 police outposts out of 48.
Data of the number of road accidents that occurred on the state highways was sought from the Police headquarters (HQ), which revealed that a total of 13,680 road accidents took place in 2022. As a matter of fact, the majority of road mishaps took place on the spots where police outposts were devoid of cops.
In all 7,182 people lost their lives in road mishaps in the areas where such police outposts are located. Despite this, the police personnel are not being deployed at these outposts. Presence of the cops on the outposts could have averted many accidents and saved lives and also put a check on the incidents of loot and robberies on highways.
Senior PHQ officials accepted that some highways are deprived of police personnel including State Highway (SH) 29D that connects Shahganj to Barkheda, SH 38 connecting Nagda to Kasrawad, SH 45connecting Betul to Parasia and many others.
Officials maintain that the presence of police personnel at the outposts located on the busy highways are of immense importance to keep a tab on over-speeding vehicles, issuing challans, checking hit-and-run cases and ensuring prompt and timely medical aid to road accident victims.
Sources at the PHQ told Free Press that lately, the state police have been planning to set up 25 more outposts at various state highways, however, because of the space strain things are not moving forward in this direction. Most of the CCTV cameras installed in these outposts are non functional to have become obsolete thus failing their very purpose.
More police force sought for outposts: ADG Additional Director General (ADG) G Janardan said more police force has been sought to deploy them on the deserted outposts. Regarding the number of black spots on the highways, the ADG told Free Press that the data of the same shall be compiled later.
