Telangana police develop own instant message app

A police patrolling team moving in Barkas area of Old City in Hyderabad would come to know within minutes about a road accident reported in a remote part of Komaram Bheem district (erstwhile Adilabad district).

No big deal with WhatsApp around, right? But Telangana police are going to revolutionise the way they communicate among themselves, having developed their own special message service app, albeit on the lines of WhatsApp. Christened ‘COP-Connect’, the new app is going to enable them to pass on information in seconds.

“It is not just about the incidence of crime. Even training modules and detailed content on other policing policies can be distributed among police personnel at the click of a button,” a senior police officer working on the app said.

It is akin to WhatsApp, but does not suffer from the former’s limitations like restricted number of users in a particular group. “A separate server for this purpose in the data centre of IT&C enables to include any number of users in a single group,” the officer explained.

For example, a separate group in COP-Connect is created for police patrolling parties in entire Telangana. When a patrolling party in Suryapet district clicks pictures of a vehicle fleeing after causing a road accident, the same would be uploaded in their group and patrolling parties in nook and corner of the State would know about it. Along with pictures, they can send small video clips of any incidents or even content of different training modules can also be uploaded in it. In some groups, from constables to DGP rank officer can be included as members.

“COP-Connect would be of immense use to police persons and officers moving at the field level. Especially in cases of missing persons, thefts, burglaries and dacoities,” police officials say. Even unit officers like Superintendents of Police or Commissioners can create their groups in COP-Connect for their internal communication.