Security website sees increase in registrations

Homeowners signing up steadily to hamarisuraksha.com to check trustworthiness of domestic staff

The Cubbon Park police station

By Shraddha Choudhury

BANGALORE (Nov. 29)—Web portal hamarisuraksha.com, a technology-based security services platform, is now making headway with the number of registrations being made to the website steadily rising.

An initiative of the Cubbon Park Police Station, hamarisuraksha.com is a website that aims to prevent domestic help-related crime in the city by registering the domestic helpers on the site.

Since its launch in August, the website has had nearly 800 domestic helpers, including housemaids, security guards, gardeners and the like, registered on it at present.

The website provides background information on those registered, such as their voter ID card number, home address, photograph, thumbprint, previous employment and other such details.

The staff that maintains the website carries out campaigns in different parts of the city to encourage citizens to register their help on it. Their last campaign was held in J.P. Nagar.

Police: Site useful in investigations

“This website was first launched in Gurgaon, and then in Delhi and Bombay, where it was very successful,” said Girish A.K, a subinspector at Cubbon Park Police Station.  “Once more people are registered on it, it will be surely help in solving cases where domestic helpers are involved, provided that they are registered.”

The site was first promoted in August to the residents of Cubbon Park who, through word of mouth, spread awareness about the police initiative. The website was also advertised in newspapers.

“The domestic helpers from houses within the jurisdiction of this [police] station have been registered,” Girish said. “These workers were registered voluntarily, no one was forced.”

Website ‘criminalizes’ domestic staff

Residents outside the Cubbon Park locality have not registered on the website yet.

Geeta Menon of Stree Jagruti Samiti, an organization which works for the rights of domestic workers in Bangalore, is against the entire idea of registering these workers on the website and feels that it “criminalizes” them.

“Fingerprints and biometrics can be taken only after there is proof of some crime they have   committed,” she said. “We are not against the website, but we are against this kind of registration.”

She believes that this private initiative is an invasion into the lives of workers.

“They are not given any identity, but are openly criminalized this way,” Geeta said.

Expansion to other areas eyed

This website is accessible to police stations all over the city but currently, it is of no real help, as residents of areas other than Cubbon Park have not registered on it.

After the campaigns taken up by the Hamarisuraksha team spread awareness about the program, police in other parts of the city will also be able to benefit from the website.