BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to introduce a significant reform in policing, the commissionerate police has proposed to the state government to separate law and order duties from crime investigation in Bhubaneswar. Police commissioner Sudhanshu Sarangi sent the proposal to the government through the state director general of police (DGP) on Tuesday.
According to the proposal, copy of which is with TOI, a centralized police station will function at the commissionerate police headquarters to take up sensitive and unsolved cases from the regular police stations for investigation. Sarangi said the bifurcation of law and order from crime investigation needs to be implemented at two levels — the commissionerate office and police stations.
At the commissionerate-level, important cases of crime should be investigated by a city crime unit with a centralized police station. The centralized unit will ease the pressure on the police stations by probing the complex and time-consuming cases, the proposal said.
Sarangi further said the investigations into cybercrimes should be taken away from the regular police stations and given to the existing cybercrime police station here under the crime branch. He also proposed that the traffic-related accidents be probed by the traffic police stations here.
The proposal lays emphasis on the need to strengthen the manpower of the commissionerate security wing for looking after VIP bandobast, route lining and agitations activities. At present, these tasks are carried out jointly by the staff of the security wing and the police stations. Sarangi said if the security wing is strengthened, the staff of the police stations can concentrate on investigating the cases of crimes.
He requested the government to provide additional resources for the successful implementation of the concept. He suggested that the initiative may be launched in one or two police stations in the first phase by giving the augmented resources to the police. The top cop proposed the creation of self-contained detective and court liaison units to deal with key investigations and court work.
It must be noted that poor investigation and low conviction rate has been a cause of concern for the state police. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the state’s conviction rate stood at 9.5% in 2015, 10.4% in 2016, 9.3% in 2017, 5.7% in 2018 and 21.5% in 2019. Former director general of police R P Sharma had in June 2018 unsuccessfully attempted to separate law and order duties from investigation in some police stations in the state.