Police control room struggles with crank calls, some even from NIMHANS patients in Bengaluru
The Hindu
Between January 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, the control room, which has been outsourced, received 786 crank calls. While such callers are added to the crank call list, they cannot be permanently blocked as Namma 112 is an Emergency Response Support System.
While crank calls have always been a concern for Bengaluru City Police’s (BCP) Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) — Namma 112, some of these calls have begun to come from even mentally-disturbed inmates of NIMHANS.
According to staff at the control room, several mentally disturbed people call the control room as ‘they want someone to lend them an ear’.
“Patients inside NIMHANS somehow get their hands on a phone and call us. Some of them are well-educated and speak excellent English. At first, we do not realise that they are patients and disturbed. At such times, we ask them if they are a patient or an attender, and ask them to pass the phone to the attender. We then request the attenders to ensure that patients do not make such calls,” a female staff member said.
Between January 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, the control room, which has been outsourced, received 786 crank calls. “These calls might not be from 786 different persons. There are some repeated callers,” said a supervisor.
While such callers are added to the crank call list, they cannot be permanently blocked as Namma 112 is an ERSS. Some crank calls even go on up to 11-12 minutes, the staff members reported.
Another category of callers who speak for long duration are senior citizens.
“Sometimes they call because they do not know how to deal with a problem, or because they just want to talk. Some of them also complain about loud music playing in a commercial establishment near them and ask us to cut off electricity supply to the establishment,” another staff member explained.