Tamil Nadu's Friends of Police started 1993, shut down 2020
Tamil Nadu's Friends of Police (FOP) program started back in 1993, aiming to bring regular people and police together to keep neighborhoods safer.
Locals volunteered for tasks like night patrols and traffic management, helping bridge the gap between police and communities.
But after about 27 years, and even winning the U.K.'s Queen's Award for Innovation in Police Training and Development, the program was shut down in 2020 following controversy over its alleged link to a high-profile custodial deaths case.
FOP denied involvement, program discontinued
FOP volunteers were trained, vetted, and played a real part in public safety.
The initiative even got international praise with the U.K.'s Queen's Award for Innovation in Police Training and Development in 2002.
Still, after accusations surfaced about FOP involvement in the tragic Jayaraj and Benicks case (which FOP denied), the government decided to discontinue the program.
Despite some bumps along the way, many remember FOP as an effort that genuinely tried to make policing more community-friendly.