# Outdated Kerala police website lists dead SHO numbers 2026-09-17T03:27:40+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Most phone numbers listed for station house officers on the Kerala police website do not work, leaving the public unable to reach the SHO in an emergency. The directory still shows numbers assigned to inspectors, but 421 of the state's 484 stations now have sub-inspectors as SHOs after a recent government order. Only 63 stations retain inspectors as SHOs. At the Balaramapuram station, the website still shows a transferred inspector's name and a number that goes unanswered. The current SHO is an SI, but his number is not listed. Senior officers said the top brass has ordered district chiefs to collect available closed user group numbers and reassign them to the new SHOs, with the exercise expected to be completed within a week. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The switch between inspector-led and SI-led stations is not a simple administrative tweak, it is a recurring political flashpoint in Kerala. The previous LDF government centralised SHO posts at inspector rank in 2017-18, and the current UDF administration reversed that decision within months of taking office. That reversal, officially rolled out in mid-August, has now collided with a basic IT maintenance gap. The public-facing directory still mirrors the old structure, so the caller who needs help reaches a transferred officer's dead number. District police chiefs have been told to fix this within a week, reassigning the existing CUG numbers to the SIs now in charge. If the remediation slips, the next test will be whether the state police digitisation wing can keep the website synced with a personnel structure that changed overnight. ## Coverage - newindianexpress.com Tags: Kerala Police, Pinarayi Vijayan, Thiruvananthapuram Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/outdated-kerala-police-website-lists-dead-sho-numbers/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/outdated-kerala-police-website-lists-dead-sho-numbers/#story-in-brief