From high security solutions for the Scotland Yard and the London Metropolitan Police to criminal databases for the Detroit Police department, IT companies in Bangalore have been an outsourcing point for all. Ironically, the IT city has been slow in implementing technology to tackle crime and terror in the state.Unlike the Detroit Police department, which built a computerised criminal database by using services of Tata Consultancy Services or the British Police units that outsourced backend work to companies that did not wish to be named, the Bangalore police itself are yet to build functional online databases.As investigations into the July 25 Bangalore blasts are in progress, various police teams from across the state flipping through pages of old files for data.Even the most basic information — identities of persons involved in terror-related offences, interrogation reports and recovery of explosives in the state — all are being fished out from paper files.To add to it, there is no full-fledged anti-terrorism cell neither at the state level nor in Bangalore, forcing the state to create makeshift terrorism investigation teams. These teams comprise crime branch officers who normally probe organised crime or homicides. Even the state-level ATC, comprising just two senior officers, often finds itself being shuffled between intelligence chiefs and the head of law and order.This could be because traffic chaos has become a primary concern in Bangalore and some of the best police information technology solutions are for the traffic sector, which includes a Rs 300-crore monitoring system sanctioned under the mega cities project. An electronic beat monitoring system for constables, intelligent closed circuit cameras to monitor traffic and Blackberrys for booking traffic offences are among the key technology innovations being used to control traffic chaos in Bangalore.Recently, the state intelligence too equipped itself with state-of-the-art electronic mail monitoring systems and switch-based telephone monitoring systems. However, the state’s criminal information system in which more than 1.50 crore data entries were fed does not have a built-in facility to search for terror-related information.New state Director General of Police R Srikumar agrees that technology needs to be used in policing. He has set changes in technology usage, intelligence gathering and handling terrorism as key goals. “We need a dedicated anti-terrorism unit that collects information from around the country and carries out investigations. data analysis will be a key function,” a senior police officer said.At a national seminar on terrorism held in Bangalore in February, Delhi Special Cell Joint Commissioner Karnal Singh said that police organisations in the country need to become knowledge organisations as part of the strategy to curb terrorism.A centralised database of information of terrorists that the police can easily access needs to be created to enable the police in any state to verify links and cross-links of people, their modus operandi, techniques and instruments used in terrorism, Singh had said.
