Hyderabad: The laissez-faire attitude, or the policy of letting things take their own course, of Telangana police's station house officers will soon be a thing of the past. All thanks to a new technological revolution. Every single petition and FIR that is registered, be it in a big city or in a remote village of Telangana, will now be just a click away from senior officials, from district SPs to the state police DGP.
From this week, all petitions and FIRs can be tracked by senior officials, in real time, with the help of Enterprise e-Cops software. All petitioners are entitled to get an acknowledgement and update on the petition as an SMS on their mobile phones and to receive copies of the FIR in their emails (if they mention the ID in the complaint) within 24 hours. The petitioners will also be given unique ID numbers to access updates of their case on the Telangana State police website.
Earlier, the scope for malpractices by the station house officer or high-ranking cops were high. Many officials would accept the petition and often “settle the cases” for money. There were instances where even after FIRs, cases were fully ignored because the Investigation Official (IO) was bribed. But now every single petition and FIR can be monitored by top cops. Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma said: “Earlier we had periodical crime review meetings where we physically flipped through case diaries. Now, we can know about a case with this software.”
Enterprise e-Cops software, which was developed as part of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS), can be accessed by senior officials and SHOs.
Since cops can even find out how many cases are pending in each police station and what the reasons are. Ravi Gupta, Additional DG, Technical Services, said: “This system has brought a lot of transparency into the police. It will be extremely difficult for an investigation official to indulge in any mischief as senior officials can even find out if ‘stock witnesses’ (a witness who gives tailored testimony for cops) are used by officials.”
Hard time for phone stalkers:
A mobile phone stalker can be arrested within hours by the SHE team and cybercrime police as the police will be able to access his residential address (on which the sim card is issued) by entering the phone number into their search engine. Unlike in the past, telecom companies are now transferring details to police without any delay.
Senior officials say tracking a person using his mobile number used to be an extremely slow process in the past. Investigation officials had to send an official request to the telecom company, seeking details of the sim card holder, and it took days for the companies to respond. “Now, we have made it mandatory for telecom companies to hand over identity details and addresses of every single person who purchases a sim card, irrespective of the background. Thus we have all the data with us to run the search,” an official said.
Background checks get easier:
There’s more that the Enterprise e-Cops software can do. It can give a background check in minutes. Character verification of each resident of Telangana, be it for a passport or a government job, can be done in seconds with the new digital system. Private companies can also approach the police for background verifications by paying charges. Senior officials say that background checks of thousands of police constable applicants were done using this database.
“A candidate’s name and father’s name are enough to to check his background. There are also other filters to search his identity. If the candidate is involved even in a petty offence, that would be available in the database,” an official said. Manual background verification of passport applicants and government job applicants had several loopholes. Many with criminal records got through as the verification process was not foolproof. Senior cops say the new digital tool helps every field officer to quickly check the background of a candidate without any glitches.
