Thiruvananthapuram: Since the beginning of the New Year the police force in Kerala has hardly had breathing space, with a series of violent shutdowns and the face-off between devotees and young female pilgrims at Sabarimala keeping them on their toes virtually round the clock.
Kerala Police’s creditable efforts at maintaining law and order, meanwhile, have been ably supported by its social outreach, and its social media page has crossed the magical one million ‘likes’ landmark.
What makes that particularly significant is that the Kerala Police now have more likes than several leading police departments across the world.
Local media reported that a senior Facebook official will hand over to state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan the official communication regarding the Kerala Police page on Facebook reaching the 1-million likes milestone.
The formal event will be held at the state police headquarter on Thursday. The chief minister will felicitate officials associated with the social media efforts of the state police at the function.
A post on the Kerala Police Facebook page said, “Kerala Police FB page crosses 1 million likes, outstrips New York Police”, and added that it would be Satya Yadav, head of Facebook in India for trust and safety who would make the official announcement on Thursday.
What has set the social media page of Kerala Police different from the home pages of several other government departments is that it has aimed to appeal to people in a palpably friendly manner.
While some of its posts are plain reminders like “Road safety is the duty of everyone”, some others give reassurance to the general public, like the one during the tension at Sabarimala when a post said, “Kerala Police — Always with the devotees”.
One report said the Kerala Police page had outstripped the New York and Queensland police departments and that it was aiming to outpace other police organisations around the world.
“Let us stand together to be on top of the world”, said a recent post as the page nudged the 1-million mark.
