Officers of ACP or DCP ranks to head cybercrime police stations in Bengaluru: Siddaramaiah

Siddaramaiah also announced that the DCPs in eight divisions in Bengaluru would have assistant commissioners of police. For this, eight ACP posts would be created, like the newly created additional superintendents of police posts in districts.

In 2023 the city with an estimated population of 1.5 crore reported 17,623 cybercrime cases, up from 9,940 in 2022. The police were able to solve only 1,271 cybercrime cases.

Siddaramaiah said the state’s performance in terms of the conviction rate in cases of violence against Dalits was not satisfactory. If the victims are to have faith in the system, the quality of investigations into cases of atrocities must be improved, he said, adding that scientifically valid chargesheets should be submitted.

“Put an end to violence against women and children. Punishment should be increased. Otherwise, the blame will be on the DCPs themselves for this failure,” he said.

“Our government has given a free hand to the police. My commitment is that we should not poke our nose in the police’s work. But the free hand should not be misused. He suggested that it should be beneficial to the people,” he further said.

Siddaramaiah observed that police officers were eager to get transfers and used their caste for such purposes.

As part of the silver jubilee celebrations of the unification of Karnataka, the chief minister announced that all the police personnel would be presented with silver medals. He also said that a budget allocation would be made for constructing Suvarna Police Bhawan.

AI-based policing software tools launched

Before the meeting, Siddaramaiah launched several software tools that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to help policing.

Among them was Police IT- V2, which assists police in registering FIRs to dispose of cases. A chatbot, Police Mitra, will answer citizens’ queries related to issues related to cybercrime, traffic, women, children and senior citizens.

The Karnataka State Police Artificial Intelligence (KSPAI) software will analyse crimes automatically, helping to identify applicable laws and sections without human intervention.

The department also launched a software tool that analyses bank statements and helps investigators “identify anomalies, irregularities and potential fraudulent activities within a vast spectrum of bank transaction data sets”.