Dabholkar murder probe throws up key policing flaws

“We have been coordinating with teams from the Pune police on the data and have ben providing technical assistance in the probe. We are coordinating with JCP Sanjivkumar Singhal. For the probe,we have been gathering data from city commissionerates and district police headquarters from across the state. We must admit that this has brought out lacunae in surveillance systems and record-keeping of individual entities,” said a senior CID officer on condition of anonymity.

The officer said database were not in place in many police headquarters.

“For example information of criminal on records,those jailed,those out on parole or bail after arrest,data on criminals in offences related to firearms,information on professional killers took a lot of time to be submitted to the Pune police. It took away a crucial investigation time,” the officer said.

Another officer who is part of the CID team said,“We found that almost all the footages from the CCTV cameras were very grainy and of no use for probe. At many places there were cameras but systems to keep the recordings for long time were not in place. There was no system to track the activities of those out on parole or bail. All these observations on the lacunae have been taken as a positive inputs which the agency will try to overcome. At the same time it must be pointed out that we have been able to gather a consolidated data on criminals on police records.”

CID Chief SP Yadav said,“Though we are not probing the murder we are giving all the possible inputs to Pune police from time to time.”