Files are passe, as cops take to computers

Files are passe, as cops take to computers
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

AHMEDABAD, SEPT 13: The next time you enter a police station to register a complaint you might do a double take. No police official sitting behind piles of files to take down your First Information Report (FIR). Spanking new computers -- complete with laser printers -- have taken over at the 30 police stations in Ahmedabad.

Just think: if somebody wants a police verification report, there is no long wait, no pleading in front of inspectors numerous times. Just a few minutes, the information is entered in, and voila! The verification report is ready.

Sounds surprising? There is more. Top officials of the city police -- additional commissioners and above -- now need not go through moth-eaten, damp GDE books or FIR registers. In a few months from now, the wide area network (WAN) -- connecting all city police stations -- and master computers will be installed at the offices of Additional Commissioner (Sector-I) Shivanand Jha and Joint Commissioner of Police (Sector-II) B J Gadhvi. Another such computer will be installed at the office of City Police Commissioner P C Pande.

Officials searching for any specific data, verifying a person's criminal record or even checking numbers of complaints being lodged in any police station in the city will only need to click the mouse to get all the information available. Even the controversial passport application verification will be stored in hard disks to ``avoid any tampering or unnecessary controversy.''

``FIRs on computers as well as maintaining of crime records this way were a long-standing dream. Since July, computers have being installed in all police stations within the city limit and the work was finished only a few days back,'' Pande told The Indian Express.

He also said, ``We are waiting for servers only to initiate WAN and we are hopeful that within six months or so, we will be able to connect all police stations, making work simpler.''

It may be recalled that only a few months back, the old city police control room on the ground floor of the City Commissionerate was renovated and sophisticated computer systems were installed -- shaping it as a full ``Command and Control Centre.''

``As both projects were successful, we insisted on installing computers at all police stations to save the time and energy of our men and also serve the people better,'' Shivanand Jha said. He also said till the policemen are familiarised with the system, all inspectors have been asked to maintain parallel records on GDE books and FIR registers. ``After that we will start storing all information on hard disk and will be able to keep all records tamper-proof,'' he added.

Senior inspector of Satellite police station F A Gohil was very enthusiastic about the new system. ``Two of our men, Jayendrasinh and Anand Shukla, are working on the computer without any hassle and are presently filing past records of notorious criminals. FIRs lodged in the last six months are also being keyed in,'' he said.

``Earlier we had to look through all old GDE books to find a person's criminal record but after we finish entering all records, it will save energy and time for us,'' Shukla said.