Verification requests pending for years
As cases of robberies and murders committed by domestic helps continue to rise, no proper system for their verification to ensure the security of the employer is in place.
Even when some employers make an attempt to fill forms and give police the details of their servants, the police are unable to verify their credentials.
Speaking to HT, a senior police officer said that it gets difficult to maintain a record and verify domestic helps as most of them are migrants.
“This is a major limitation. Most of the people who are employed as servants do not belong to Delhi. When they mention their local address, we send a request to verify their credentials to the SSP concerned. We also ask them to give us information on whether the person has any criminal case registered against his/her name, but mostly we do not receive a response,” a police officer said.
In most cases the domestic helps do not even have a valid identification proof. “Most of the workers migrate from Nepal, Bangladesh, Bihar and Haryana. They do not have any valid ID proof. When we ask them for it, they are unable to provide any details. All they have is a sketchy address of their village from where they belong. So we have to include that in the record as there is no way to verify that,” a police officer said.
Even when there is a valid ID proof with the employee, the local police send a request to verify the person’s credentials but they hardly get a response. Most of these applications, thus, keep lying unattended. The police become active only once a crime is committed. In many cases even the domestic helps hired from a verified agency were involved in cases of theft and robbery.
“Almost all applications are pending as there is no set mechanism for the verification to be done. We have to send multiple reminders to the police from where the employee belongs, but we hardly get any information. The process of verification takes too long and since there is no accountability, the process gets delayed,” the police officer said.