When butterflies come to cops' rescue

It’s a rainy afternoon. Cops in many offices under the Navi Mumbai police commissionerate are hard at work.

- Riddhi Doshi

The control room is filled with frenzied clicks of keypads and phone rings. In the kennel, the dog squad trainer is trying to get three excited puppies -- two Dobermans and a German shepherd -- to stop barking. And inside the investigation room, the air is thick and tense as usual.

But at the police headquarter's 1,000-sq-ft butterfly garden, deputy commissioner Sanjaykumar Patil breaks into a smile when he sees a black butterfly. “Did you see that?” he says excitedly while trying to look for other winged creatures. Patil spends a few minutes at this newest feature of the Belapur office every day before starting the day's work. “It’s a green, positive space, and I like walking around here,” he adds. A few other cops have their lunch on the benches here, while curious visitors stop by to read the plaques on the 60 different varieties of plants in the garden or the board that names the different species of butterflies along with their pictures that are spotted here.