They said the decision was taken after some traffic policemen had close shaves with speeding trucks from neighbouring states at checkpoints.NEW DELHI: After losing some of their men to armed criminals, the traffic police have decided to provide weapons to cops on night patrol. Policemen posted in crime-prone areas, such as border posts, will now carry sidearms for self-defence. They will be backed up by armed patrol teams on motorcycles and in PCR vans fitted with night-vision devices and speed cameras."Apart from being armed, every traffic cop will also be trained to deal with attacks by criminals who are flagged down for checking," said Muktesh Chander, special commissioner, traffic. Officials said an order in this regard was issued after a meeting with the home ministry and it will be implemented in a few days.
They said the decision was taken after some traffic policemen had close shaves with speeding trucks from neighbouring states at checkpoints. Traffic police teams have been deployed throughout the night for the past one month to keep a check on violations, especially near the border areas.
For now, police have identified Loni, Ghaziabad, Badarpur, Bahadurgarh, Sonipat, Gurgaon and Noida borders for deploying armed personnel and a team has also been tasked to identify crime-prone zones in northeast and outer Delhi. Armed traffic policemen will be deployed in 20 such spots later.
Traffic officials say, earlier each traffic barricade at these border posts used to have three or four traffic cops accompanied by an armed district policeman, but now the aim is to relieve the district cops for law and order duties in these areas.
At present, a team of 200 policemen is deployed across the city which is divided into five traffic ranges. They are divided into batches of 40 cops per range and monitored by two traffic inspectors. Their primary job is to check violations of drunken or dangerous driving and speeding.
A police officer said policemen have been instructed to look out for trucks carrying cattle as gangs of cattle thieves from neighbouring states have been involved in a number of attacks on policemen.
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