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Indian police officers to be 'tagged'
An Indian police force is to 'electronically tag' its own constables to stop them going absent without leave from their beats.
Police chiefs hope the scheme will help them to get constables to crime scenes faster Photo: ALAMY
By Dean Nelson, New Delhi 4:48PM GMT 22 Dec 2010
Under a scheme being introduced in Punjab, northern India, constables in Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana will be required to carry GPS mobile phones to allow their officers to monitor their movements.
Police chiefs hope the scheme, known as the 'E-Beat Tracking and Management System', will help them to get constables to crime scenes faster and improve intelligence gathering on their patrols.
Each officer will be issued with a Nokia E5 smart phone with high resolution camera and QWERTY keypad to they can take photographic evidence and file immediate reports The initiative is part of a government drive to improve local intelligence gathering following the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
The Home Ministry, which is responsible for antiterrorist policing, has been concerned that too many constables are not patrolling their beats. PK Yadav, Punjab's Assistant Inspector General of Police, said if a beat constable goes absent without leave "he'll no longer be able to hide it."
"We can monitor the movements of the officer, like how much time he spent at a particular place, which route he took to reach a crime spot or office and all relevant details. This will defiantly bring in more transparency and accountability," he said.
"The biggest benefit will be we can now reduce the time between the act of crime and investigations. Normally, we have to arrange official photographers to record the crime spot but now a beat officer can perform the same duty."
