Kolkata Police’s proactive intervention helped foil a suicide attempt that was making headlines on social media on Saturday. Around 11 pm on Saturday, a follower sent a message to Kolkata Police. The link was to a screen recording of a Facebook Live in which a 20-year-old youth was threatening to take his own life. The police immediately traced the account but were unable to access it as it was locked. On calling the informant, the police found out that the youth was his school friend and was currently pursuing his graduation in the university. The informant knew his friend’s old phone number but did not know his current address. Using technology, the police traced the number to an area in Behala but realising that finding the specific address would take more time, the information was sent to Inspector Satya Prakash Upadhyay, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Parnasree Police Station (PS). The news was also sent to Behala PS OC Inspector Animesh Howladar. On his direction, sub-inspectors Subhankar Das, Amresh Naskar and Arun Bhattacharya launched an intensive search in the Behala PS area. On the other hand, sub-inspector Rajat Mandal launched a search in the Parnasree PS area.
Behala PS officials were in constant touch with the informant and Sarsuna PS was also informed. Since the youth’s name is quite common in Bengal, the officials woke up other residents confused by the same name in the middle of the night. They rushed to the next possible address, apologising for the misunderstanding. Finally, the Behala PS team traced the youth’s address and current phone number in Parnasree. On speaking to him, the police learnt that he had decided to take the step as he was upset over some issues. “It is a collective effort. We received information from our control room and four police stations worked together,” said a Kolkata Police official. Additional Commissioner of Police 1 Murali Dhar Sharma said, “The social media monitoring cell at Lalbazar has given good results. This is saving people from fraud and even lives.” A day earlier, Kolkata Police convinced a car owner to remove a sticker with an offensive message towards women.
