‘100’ goes dead in city for 2 hrs

[1]

Chennai: Police emergency number ‘100’ went dead for almost two hours on Sunday, rendering the 80 lakh population covered by the Chennai city commissionerate vulnerable to attack from criminals and throwing police operations out of gear.
To present one ‘minor’ example, a woman software professional was robbed of her purse on busy Usman Road in T. Nagar in the afternoon and she could not get through to the police emergency number ‘100’ and finally gave up after trying more than 15 times. “It was a terrible experience, getting robbed and not being able to access help,” she told Deccan Chronicle.
“The call was getting disconnected every time after a single ring,” Ms P.V. Saranya said after her efforts in distress to contact police did not succeed for nearly 30 minutes.
It looks like she was not the only one who felt totally let down by the city police control room.
For nearly two hours, the city police control room remained inaccessible to the public in distress in the city.
“I tried to contact police emergency number 100 for nearly 30 minutes after she called me for help. The call was not getting connected,” said Mr Divakaran, the local guardian of Ms Saranya, 22, who had lost her wallet in T. Nagar.
When Deccan Chronicle contacted the police, a senior police officer disclosed that there was some technical problem at the modern control room located at the commissioner’s office in Egmore on Sunday afternoon. “We have rectified the problem,” the official assured.
Apart from the technical snag, the control room server was down for nearly 10 minutes during the same time, cutting off all lifelines for the residents of the city in case of an emergency.
In the case of Ms Saranya, some kind shopkeepers gave her `100 to return to her place of stay in Kandanchavadi.