Usually at the receiving end, Kerala Police has won laurels for their work in the State during the two waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Transforming itself in the past 16 months during the raging Coronavirus, the Kerala Police have surprised one and all. Well, their actions were such as they reflected their humane touch and became a friend for everyone, especially those in dire need and distress.

Delivering their best, the State police force was handed down diverse and multiple tasks of which they had no previous experience. These included surveillance of the quarantined and such tasks like feeding the domestic and pet animals of those families which had been affected by Covid.

The Kerala Police virtually became a single-window solution for all sorts of services during the pandemic.  It was during this well implemented duties, that several of its force members contracted Covid with some succumbing to the infection. In the course of their duties, nearly 13,550 officers tested Covid positive; 11 of them also fell victim to the virus.

Commending the State police force, Vinson M Paul, retired Director-General of Police and former Chief Information Commissioner said: “Kerala Police has shown its best side during the pandemic, achieving a rare mark in community policing. The relief operations have helped people in distress and it’s with great pride that they continue to serve even as the State goes through repeated lockdowns and a high Covid positivity rate.”

A look at the details of their work is enough to impress anyone. The force has distributed food packets to around 160,000 people across the State through 20 centres. It also supplied 750-odd medicine packets to the needy.

Working under the ‘Prasanthi’ project, the cops kept in constant touch with some 10,863 senior citizens who are living alone to keep a tab on their well being and health. Going down the age group, they also gave counselling to around 3,500 children.

Keeping a vigil on the spread of the disease, the Kerala Police visited 325,000 houses to check on the status of the home quarantined and tracked more than half a million people for ‘contact’ identification.

As part of its mobile tracking system, the force recorded the movement of more than one million among the quarantined while also handling the cluster and containment zone management. Acting swiftly, they also ferried 5,000 patients in emergency situations during the Covid second wave.

In order to spread awareness among the people about the Covid, the State police undertook massive ICT (information and communications technology) campaigns. Their dance videos had gone viral with 30 million hits and over 124,000 likes. The videos and trolls, helped the cops to reach out to people and disseminate Covid-related information about protocols.

What makes all these achievements truly praiseworthy is the fact that the force is just 50,000 strong and it a 33.4 million population plus the 1.5 million migrant labourers from other States working in Kerala.

Talking to indiatoday.in, a lady police officer said: “The pandemic offered us an opportunity to explore our creativity and serve people to the best of our ability. There have been weeks where we worked for almost three days without break due to the workload. But none of us complained. The good work has paid rich dividends as the people now treat us like family members.”