CID loses its public 'face'book

The Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which became only the second such agency in India to join social networking sites Facebook and Twitter on June 7, 2010 to remove the obstacles people face in approaching it, has gone inactive on this public platform since almost a year.

The last update was posted on February 12, 2010, two days after former DGP (CID) D V Guruprasad who created the page was transferred to the Home Guards, Civil Defence, and Fire and Emergency Services.

The State police chief, Shankar Bidari, who also holds the additional charge of the DGP (CID), says he knows little about the status of the ambitious outreach initiative. His was a short tenure as the DGP (CID).

Bidari became the head of the premier investigating agency on August 6, 2011, and was appointed the police chief on November 30. Then he was busy in other more important assignments. Thus, he could not focus on the initiative.

An officer who was actively involved in updating the page regularly when Guruprasad was at the helm said that the successive DGPs took little interest in sustaining the initiative that became very popular when launched.

“It appears most of them did not even know that such an initiative existed. When the higher officials themselves lost interest, we could do little. They ought to have pushed it,” the officer said. Now it is back to square one for the initiative. The followers, however, are angry. One of them, Vinay Kumar Gowda, posted this on November 29: “The old DGP (CID) Guruprasad was quite a better one. I don’t see any updates here since he got changed.”

Another user, Abhishek Parik, replied thus on June 6, when a friend complained about a cyber crime: “My friend this page is now inactive. Walk into your area police station (sic) and file a complaint. Then it will be transferred to cyber crime guys...”

Guruprasad laments that such a novel initiative was not sustained. He said he had entrusted the task of maintaining the page to about five officers who were permanently posted to the CID.

“They (the officers) know the password. But my successors should have taken interest,” Guruprasad told Deccan Herald. He also said that few such initiatives introduced in government agencies could be sustained.

“The real problem is such initiatives were not made the part and parcel of the system. There was no codification. Perhaps, I should have issued a circular that the system would continue even when I retire,” he added.

Netfacts

* CID, Karnataka joined Facebook and Twitter on June 7, 2010, becoming only the second law-enforcement agency after Delhi Traffic Police (DTP) to log on to social networking sites.

* As of now, the DGP (CID) Karnataka has 795 friends. Many friends stopped following when there was no update.

*  Former DGP, D V Guruprasad, who created the page was very active. He would keep the public informed of the happenings in the CID, including the status of important and high-profile cases.

*  He also used to respond to the public, advising them on matters pertaining to the criminal justice system.

* The last update was posted on February 12, 2010. Since then, the agency’s wall has only photo tags.

* Guruprasad also created Facebook and Twitter pages when he became the DGP, Fire and Emergency Services, Home Guards, and Civil Defence. The page, however, met the same fate.

* The last post on ‘DGPHGFF KARNATAKA’ was on July 21, 2011, 10 days before Guruprasad retired. The page has just 74 friends.

* In contrast, the Facebook page of Delhi Traffic Police has not only achieved stupendous success, but also bridged the gap between police and the citizens. It is liked by 91,753 users and 2,309 are talking about it.

* More than 50,000 people took part in DTP’s drive to discipline the traffic violators. They enthusiastically upload videos and photographs of traffic violations. DTP receives 200 complaints daily on Facebook.