Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police J.V. Ramudu on Wednesday called for popularising ‘Abhayam’, a mobile app that will enable a person in distress or facing an emergency situation to immediately seek police help by simply pressing a ‘Panic’ icon on the phone.
Addressing a press conference here, he said the app available on Google Play store and AP Intranet portal has already been launched in Visakhapatnam for implementing across Andhra Pradesh and 4,000 people have already downloaded. A click on the ‘Panic’ button alerts the centralised Police Control Room by providing instantly the location of the person and a patrol van would be despatched to the spot immediately.
Giving an overview of the IT initiatives implemented in the police department, he said Abhayam app would be of huge help to girls and women as it would provide a sense of security. It could also be used to prevent ragging and said the police department would make a request at the vice-chancellors’ conference of AP universities being held here on August 29 to popularise the app.
The app could also be used by a basic phone. It also has features like ‘safe places’, which allows the user to identify safer places in the vicinity of his/her current location and ‘ travel tracker’ that allows family members and friends to track the user’s location.
He said an ATM type machine called – ICLIK (Instant Complaint Logging Internet Kiosk) was also being used - two each in Nellore, Prakasam and Guntur Urban and three in Visakahpatnam. Described as a police station away from police station, it would enable a citizen to lodge a complaint in Telugu, English or Hindi through online/voice/scanning. Once the complaint gets registered, a printed receipt and SMS would be delivered to the complainant. The other initiatives include FIR@ doorstep, e-passport seva, citizen portal, e-beat and e-patrol tracking system, Jail release monitoring system and court monitoring system.
Replying to questions, Mr. Ramudu said efforts were on to extradite international red sanders smuggler Gangi Reddy. “We are hoping to get him quickly,” he added.
On the charge that AP police was helping Mathiah, who has been named as an accused by Telangana police in the cash-for-vote scam, he said he was the complainant in Vijayawada and not an accused. He said it was the duty of police to help a victim or complainant and not an accused.
