Close on the heels of failure of his scheme of posting four inspectors in all the circle police stations of the State, Director General of Police, OP Singh, now made a move of handling crime, what former DGP Javeed Ahmed, had already initiated during Samajwadi Party’s regime in January 2016.
However, Singh on Thursday claimed that the idea of `Digital Volunteers’ was mooted by him on the directions of the Central Government. Announcing the above scheme, Singh said that the “digital volunteers” will check for objectionable posts on social media and create awareness among people to not get carried away by such provocations.
``Volunteers will play the role of digital vigilantes to check social media hate posts designed to disrupt peace in Uttar Pradesh, a communally-sensitive state that has witnessed clashes between religious groups over inflammatory online material in the past”, Singh claimed. The volunteers to be appointed by the state police after inviting applications, will check for objectionable posts on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, Google Plus and other social networking sites of the kind, and make sure people do not get carried away by such provocations.
“Contradicting” hate posts with facts from reports in newspapers, TV and Internet news portals, they will work alongside special police officers and peace committee members to defuse communal flare-ups. Action will be taken against those posting hate messages, Singh added.
Singh said that a Whatts App group comprising of 250 digital volunteers will be made in each of the 1469 police stations of the State. The volunteers will be from different fields like journalists, corporators, pradhans, principal, teachers, retired government officials, priests, religious leaders, and all other prominent persons of the area who were willing to facilitate the police in controlling hate crime as well as to help them in improving policing, Singh claimed. He said that these volunteers group will be connected to another group managed by district police chief and also at the DG office level.
It may be mentioned that in January 2016, then DGP Javeed Ahmed issued a circular across the state to engaged Digital Volunteer. He claimed that the idea was floated to pre-empt a repeat of the communal violence triggered by a hate post in Bareilly, Firozabad and Moradabad districts. A post on WhatsApp sparked tension in Saharanpur. likewise, messages on the Dadri incident where a Muslim man was lynched on suspicion of cow slaughter led to anxiety in the Gautam Buddh Nagar district. Javeed Ahmed than gave directions that other than sensitive posts, the volunteers will look for fundamentalist propaganda pushed by the Islamic State terror group and other jihadi organisations. After the circular, police also reportedly set up two “laboratories” — Social Media Command and Research Center at the DIG office in Meerut and the STF office in lucknow — to handle such cases. These measures have been taken after considering that many people, even those in rural areas, possess Internet connections and are active on the social media. Besides, the police technical wing at that time also set up a WhatsApp Surveillance cell (9454401002), through which people can inform authorities about provocative posts whenever they come across one. However, the move of Javeed Ahmed failed to make any impact as then Akhilesh Yadav led government lost the election. Now similar move has been made by OP Singh and only the time will reveal whether the UP police get the desire results or this scheme or it will once again close like other schemes so far launched by the law enforcing agencies.