Delhi police harassed with 72,000 ‘blank calls’ every day, contacts DoT for help

Delhi Police is hassled by around 72,000 “blank calls” everyday with some callers dialling the Police Control Room helpline numbers over 50 times “by mistake”.

With ‘112’ also being in the trial run, along with ‘100’, the number of blank calls received on both these helpline numbers totals to around 72,000 everyday, said a senior police officer.

Earlier, on an average, the PCR unit received around 27,000 calls daily with around 40% of them being blank calls.

Delhi police has now prepared a list of such callers who “harass” the control room personnel with repeated calls and has shared it with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and DCPs of the districts concerned.

The list contains details of callers who have dialled ‘100’ and ‘112’ (India’s equivalent to 911 of the US’ all-in-one emergency services) four or more times “without any reason”, said the officer.

“On one of the days, we received over 99,000 blank calls. In the last couple of weeks, we have looked into the details of these calls and made a list of 67 callers who dialled the numbers four or more times. We have sent the list to DoT for a solution,” he added.

The PCR unit has also identified a few callers who have dialled ‘100’ or ‘112’ around 70 times or more, traced their addresses and shared the details with the concerned DCPs.

“We dialled some of these numbers and most of them said they had dialled the numbers by mistake. They could have dialled once or twice by mistake, but it’s unlikely that someone would do that 70-80 times,” he said.