‘Loud police sirens rob us of sleep at night’

LUCKNOW: The ubiquitous police control room (PCR) vans and patrol bikes may have increased cops’ presence and reduced their response time, boosting the common man’s confidence, but complaints about the misuse of loud sirens by them have also started coming in from various parts of the state, said people familiar with the issue in the police department.

“Many people find police sirens blaring intermittently throughout the night causing disturbed sleep and mental stress. Cops in vans and on bikes can often be seen honking sirens — not to deal with any law and order urgency, but to alert and chase roadside vendors away and this causes avoidable irritation to others,” they said.

Recently, some residents of Gonda felt so upset with the perpetual honking in their locality that last week they approached the district police chief with a formal written complaint, demanding a ban on police sirens in the night.

Situated 120 km north-east of Lucknow, Gonda is a city and district headquarters of Gonda district in UP. The complaint, which is being seen as the first of its kind in the state, read: ‘This is requested that applicants’ house is situated within around 200 metres radius from the Sadbhavana police chowki under the city kotwali.

The constables at the chowki keep on playing the loud siren from motorcycle after every one hour interval in the night, disturbing sleep of children and old people in the entire locality resulting into continuous irritation and mental stress.’

Half a dozen complainants including Mohd Basheer (advocate), Mohd Shahzad (advocate) Mohd Asim Khan, Islam Khan (scribe), Arshad Ahamad (advocate) and Mohd Hasan, also cited a Supreme Court order that they claimed banned loud sirens in residential localities between 10pm and 6am, provided there was no emergency.

‘You are, therefore, requested to direct the in-charge of the Sadbhavana chowki not to sound the siren from 10pm to 6am,’ summed up the complaint.

However, the police did not take cognizance of the compliant, which according to them, did not merit attention.

“We received a complaint from some locals who wanted the police not to sound the siren at night. But we found the demand to be unwarranted,” said Shailesh Pandey, SP, Gonda.

Arguing that sounding the siren was an essential part of law and order duty, the SP claimed that sirens produced sound within the permissible limits .

“The siren instills a sense of security among people besides scaring anti-social elements away,” he added.

Making a similar point, SO Alok Roy also said no action was possible on the application as blowing the siren was only a part of police’s duty.

“We have to blow horn there because that area is on the outskirts of the city and is prone to criminal incidents, especially during winters,” he said, adding “We will try that horns are played less frequently as possible, if some people have a problem with that.”

“We look at the wider prospective and don’t go by anybody’s liking or disliking,” said HC Awasthi, UP director general of police, when asked about the complaint of loud police sirens in night hours.

“Maintaining law and order as well as prevention and detection of crime are police’s primary duty. If anything is necessary for these, then it has to be done,” he said. Citing an example, the DGP said traffic diversion on many occasions creates problems for some people, but it is done for a wider cause of public.

Ex-DGP Sulkhan Singh had a different view and justified the Gonda residents’ demand.

“It is a justified demand. Using the horn unnecessarily is an offence under the Environmental Protection Act and the MV Act,” he claimed.

“Besides, use of sirens is permitted only when a police vehicle or an ambulance is rushing to attend an emergency. Sirens cannot be used, if roads are clear or when the police are moving in normal course,” he pointed out.

The pure legal position, as given in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, according to additional transport commissioner Arvind Kumar Pandey, is that police vehicles can blow sirens during the course of their duty.

“But rules also say that horns will be of such sound signals as may be approved by the registering authority in whose jurisdiction such vehicles are kept,” he said.

“However, in practice no such approvals are sought,” he added.