Chennai: Come February, every cop in the city will have access to the database of criminals in the city in the form of an exclusive mobile app, which is in the making. Sources said that the app is likely to have as many as 75 fields of data. The list of fields include name and aliases the criminal goes by, residential address (multiple addresses in case the criminal has more than accommodations), known accomplices, crimes involved in, pending cases, non-bailable-warrants - if any, and category of the criminal.
Explaining the utility, a senior police official said that this would come in handy for the beat police officers while on patrol. “For instance, the beat officer while passing by a particular street will be able to know who are the criminals present in the case and the cases in which they were involved. This will also help reduce the time consumed to verify the criminal antecedents of a suspect picked up during patrolling. The inception of the app will also reduce the man hours spent on checking the crime history of any criminal. Initially, the app will not have images of the suspect. The data will be hosted in the city police server. Based on the usage, the server will be upgraded, and will be linked to the State database as well. The app will also accommodate the fingerprints of the suspects after its inception and this will reduce the footfalls on the Fingerprints Bureau, which is flooded with queries seeking fingerprint matches,” said a senior police official.
The official added that this app will be used for local purposes and the routine formal channels will still be in use for the administrative purposes. The official noted that the idea is the brainchild of the city police commissioner S. George, and the DCP (Control Room) S. Mani is entrusted with the App development work, which began on Wednesday. The city police had already profiled as many as 14,551 criminals involved in various offences under the heads of murder, murder for gain, robbery, house break-ins (day), house break-ins (night), snatching, theft, pickpocket, automobile thefts, and cheating since 2012. Of the 14,551 profiled criminals, as many as 3,248 are from outside the city.
