With the change in nature of crimes that have no geographical boundaries, the Uttarakhand Police should be trained in use of latest technology as per national standards to effectively prevent criminal activities in illegal mining, real estate and construction sectors in the State.
“The Special Task Force (STF), Uttarakhand, should be strengthened and a system should be developed to instill fear of the police among criminals in the State,” said Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat after inaugurating the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS) at police HQ on Monday.
Apart from strengthening the information system, the police should focus on modernisation and developing technological expertise so that if deployed for disaster relief, police can respond effectively without delay and minimise human casualties, he suggested.
The CM announced Rs two crore for the State Police Martyrs Fund and directed the state principal secretary (Home) Om Prakash and Director General of Police BS Sidhu to draft a plan for compensation to family of police personnel who die in the line of duty.
Rawat said that the Central Government had allocated Rs 15.99 crore for the implementation of CCTNS project in Uttarakhand. The department has already spent about Rs 5.45 crore out of total Rs 8.05 crore released by the central government on this project.
Under CCTNS, all police stations of Uttarakhand will be connected to other police stations of the country. All the FIRs will be digitised and after lodging an FIR, one can know about FIR and sections imposed by the police through internet. As digital signature of the complainant is mandatory to lodge an FIR under CCTNS, he suggested the police should develop a module in which people can lodge pre-FIR without their digital signature before lodging the FIR after police verification.
He expressed disappointment at police not utilising latest technology effectively. The CM had observed this during his surprise inspection of Kotwali Police station recently.
He said, “We have adverse geographical conditions and can’t attract investors if they feel unsafe here. Police need to restore confidence among the people about their security.”
He acknowledged that in the June 2013 disaster, the State lacked skilled response teams and sufficient information about the disaster. The police should be trained in such a way that State does not need help from from Central agencies in rescue and relief operations after disaster. “What is use of establishing SDRF in the state if we depend on NDRF at the time of emergencyIJ” The CM assured fixed tenure and freedom to the police officers to prevent crime in various sectors.
The DGP informed the CM about steps taken by the department for solving crime cases while ADGP (administration) AK Raturi informed about current status of CCTNS project.