Concerned over poor conviction rate, particularly in cases of crime against women, the Odisha police have started a unique programme of felicitating successful police investigating officers (IOs) regularly so as to motivate them and encourage others in honing their investigating skills.
“We have decided to felicitate successful investigating officers every month at the police headquarters here in presence of senior police officers, so that they would be motivated and others will be encouraged,” said DGP RP Sharma here on Saturday after felicitating 24 officers for successfully detecting cases in recent past.
The poor conviction rate is mainly due to poor investigation and public prosecutors find it extremely difficult to argue a poorly investigated case in any court of law. Since traditional methods of investigating a crime have lost their values and importance, policemen were sensitised about the need to continuously upgrade their professional skills and knowledge to face the new challenges of crime.
“With change of time, many new and complex crimes are committed now. Cyber crime, organised crimes, economic offences are new challenges before the police. We have to adopt scientific methods of investigation to solve them,” Dr Sharma said, adding that criminal investigation is an important function of the police force and the policemen must continuously upgrade their investigating skills.
He said every month successful investigating police officers would be felicitated at the police headquarters.