The Tuesday Interview | We’re leveraging tech to prevent and detect crimes, says Praveen Sood

Karnataka is reporting many cyber cases because it has a cyber police station in every district, and eight such stations in Bengaluru alone

Karnataka Police is focusing on technology and manpower to strengthen its functioning and efficiency. Augmenting forensic staff strength, upgrading and buying new equipment and technology to detect and prevent crimes and keeping a close watch on terror and terror-related activities keep him busy, Karnataka DG-IGP Praveen Sood tells DH’s Nina C George.

Helplines 1930 and 112 and Cyber police stations have been set up. How have you trained police staff to tackle cybercrimes and criminals?

Most calls to 1930 and 112 are about cyber frauds – in the range of some 15,000 a year. Karnataka is reporting so many cases because it has a cyber police station in every district, and eight such stations in Bengaluru alone. When people call, a complaint is registered, given a code and passed on to the jurisdictional police station and an FIR registered. In cyber frauds, we will be able to block the transfer of money between accounts and prevent the withdrawing of money by the fraudster only if complaints are registered within 24 hours. Karnataka Police has been able to block Rs 80 to 90 crore from reaching the hands of cyber criminals, thanks to timely registration of complaints and swift police action. The Centre for Cyber Crime Institute and Research Training not only trains our staff but also prosecutors and magistrates, because it is important that people fighting and interpreting the case also understand the nuances of cybercrime investigations.

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What is the government doing to strengthen forensic science testing facilities in Karnataka?

In 2020, we had five forensic labs, today we have seven. We have increased our staff strength in the forensic wing. We have also newly recruited 206 ‘Scene of Crime’ officers. Their training at National Forensic Sciences University in Gujarat and the Karnataka Police Academy is yielding results. More than Rs 50 crore has been spent on infrastructure and an equal amount on highly specialized equipment. In many forensic investigations, reports are now being sent to investigating officers within a month, as compared to 9-18 months earlier. We are upgrading capacities to do the same with DNA, disputed documents, and audio-video forensics. We have been able to achieve speedier testing of narcotics. Overall, our testing capacity has increased from 20,000 to 50,000 samples a year.

The state is heading into elections very soon. How are the police getting ready?

This is a sensitive phase that we are in right now as things are hotting up. Elections mean more VVIP visits, more rallies, and we are ready for that. Thankfully, we have the least number of vacancies in police force in the last two decades in all categories. When I took charge, we had about 25,000 vacancies, but today, we have only about 12,000 vacancies, of which recruitment is going on for 6,000. So, by the middle of next year, we will be left with about 5,000 to 6,000 vacancies, which is roughly 5 per cent of our total sanctioned strength. So, with good manpower and by leveraging technology in a big way, we are ready to handle elections.

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The Mangaluru pressure cooker blast has turned the attention on terrorism and terror-related activities. Should we be worried about more of it?

Recently, the Government of India banned outfits like People’s Front of India (PFI) and CFI. The meaning of banning such organisations is that they will not indulge in any overt activity which they were earlier doing and were getting away with, including heinous crimes and murders with an intention of creating animosity and disturbing peace and public order. The ban has now made that impossible. But to say that anti-national or anti-social elements will stop doing anything is being too naive. They will still try to do things covertly. So, now, it is a bigger challenge for us. This pressure cooker blast is one example. Just because we have banned PFI, it does not mean that radical elements have ceased to exist.

How far has Karnataka come in using technology in detection and prevention of crimes?

We have recently introduced Mobile Crime and Criminal tracking Network and System. It means that all the data we have in the system is now accessible to the police personnel on the field. If our staff on the ground finds somebody suspicious and want to check his antecedents, they just take his fingerprint on the device in the field itself, and if it has a match in our database, you have a fugitive in your hands. We will also have ‘Unify’, which uses facial recognition to track criminals. We have also introduced a system where complaints on motor vehicle thefts can be registered online and the FIR can be accessed online. ‘E-Lost’ app was introduced to ease the process of filing reports of missing documents for insurance. All police verifications have gone online and no documents are received manually. We want to leverage technology to minimise avoidable footfalls and physical interaction between police and citizens.