By Aratrika Dey
Back in September 2019, under the suggestion of IPS officer Isha Pant, thirteen police stations were set to get ‘child play areas’ inside their buildings. The first police station to set up such a facility in the city was the HSR Layout police station. However, it is also the first one to shut down. HSR cops said that fewer children were visiting the police station because of COVID-19, leading to the shut down. Now that space is being used for other police work.
“Police stations usually suffer from lack of space, and COVID-19 is definitely a reason why children are visiting less,” DCP (command centre) Isha Pant told Residents Watch. “But I am not too sure why HSR has closed it. The play areas in police stations like Koramangala and Madiwala are still running, perhaps because they have a separate space designated for them. Maybe HSR Layout will reopen the play area after some time.”
Origin of the idea
The idea for the play area was to break the scary stereotype that the police are generally associated with. “Traditionally we see that police stations, or rather the police, are used as a means to discipline children by saying that – ‘If you don’t do this or if you do this, we will call the police’, so we are basically seen as people to be scared of,” says Pant. “I felt that it was important for us to break this conditioning and make police stations more child-friendly.”
According to Pant, the experience we have as children stays with us all our lives. “So we wanted to start this to ensure that whenever children visit the police stations, they would feel at ease and not threatened.” It is not uncommon for children to accompany a parent while filing police complaints. In matters of domestic disputes, the presence of the child in such a scenario can be frightening. In such cases, the minors can be made to use the kids play area as a healthy distraction.”
After HSR Layout, Koramangala and Madiwala police stations had their own child play areas with a constable manning them. The idea was to include this model in thirteen such police stations in Bengaluru. However, due to lack of space, not all stations could accommodate them. But they have kept play material and toys in the stations to keep the children entertained.
Child-friendly police stations can be seen in Gujarat, Chattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh, among others. It’s an idea that should be implemented across the country.
