More than 150 people have lodged their complaints with the grievance cell of police commissioner Satyajit Mohanty this month so far. The public grievance cell by the police commissioner takes place on every Monday in which anyone can put forward his or her grievances.

Mohanty said that the aim of the public grievance cell was to hear complaints from people from the fringe areas of the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

“People from areas — such as Kandarpur, Cuttack Sadar, Barang, Chandaka and Tamando — have been coming to the grievance cell. After hearing the grievances, the inspectors and assistant commissioners of police of the concerned areas are being instructed to redress the grievances,” said the police commissioner. He also gave a patient hearing to the aggrieved people on October 8, which was a government holiday.

While around 50 per cent of the grievances were related to land disputes, the remaining grievances were related to non-registration of cases, delay in police action and cases related to financial fraud.

“We have been trying our best to become people friendly and hearing of grievances is a top priority for us. We also

try to provide prompt solution to the grievances,” added Mohanty.

Aggrieved people also hailed the effort of the police commissioner and said that such programme would lessen the distance between public and the police. “I have been visiting the local police stations over harassment by my neighbour for so long. But they never took my complaint seriously. So, I decided to meet the commissioner during grievance and my problem was solved immediately,” said Amiya Das, a resident of Chandaka.

In September, the police launched “Know Your Police” programme in which school students visited police stations and interacted with the cops. The students also asked questions related to role of police, methods of police to detect crimes and responsibility of the police.