Chennai: Tamil Nadu police have set up Internal Vigilance Cells across all districts and commissionerates, providing dedicated phone and WhatsApp numbers for the public to report corruption, misconduct, abuse of authority and other unethical practices by police personnel.The cells were constituted on the directions of DGP and Head of Police Force Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal. In the three city police commissionerates, complaints can be lodged on 7871723000 in Chennai, 6374514428 in Tambaram and 9840018110 in Avadi.Under the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which came into effect on Wednesday, complainants can also send photographs, videos and documents through WhatsApp to support their complaints. Police said the identities of complainants and witnesses would be kept confidential and they would be protected from harassment, intimidation or retaliation.Each cell will function round the clock with at least three personnel working in shifts. Personnel posted to the cells must have a record of integrity, and the units will operate from secure, access-controlled rooms to ensure confidentiality.Every complaint must be registered immediately and assigned a unique number, with an acknowledgement sent to the complainant. The nodal officer must scrutinise the complaint and forward it to the competent authority within 24 hours.An inquiry officer must be appointed within 48 hours and the inquiry should ordinarily be completed within 15 days. To avoid conflict of interest, officers will not be allowed to inquire into complaints involving personnel from their own units or cases in which they have any other conflict.Access to complaint records will be restricted to authorised personnel.The functioning of the vigilance cells and action taken on complaints will be monitored at different levels by SPs, Commissioners, DIGs, IGs, ADGPs and the DGP.
