Punjab Police gets booster shot to tackle new-age crimes
Chief minister announces initiative to upgrade law enforcement with focus on cyber crime, women’s safety
Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday announced that all districts in Punjab will have dedicated technical, narcotics, social media, forensic and anti-sabotage checking units to strengthen law enforcement.
Apart from 3,100 domain experts to combat specialised crimes such as cyber crime, 10,000 police officials will be recruited, of which 33% will be women, at the level of sub inspector and constables, to expand the ground force and ensure more effective policing, the chief minister said.
“The domain experts will be in the fields of law, forensics, digital forensics, information technology, data mining, cyber security, intelligence analysis, human resource management and development and road safety planning and engineering,” said Captain Amarinder, who also holds the home portfolio.
Hiring of domain experts on the anvil
State police chief Dinkar Gupta said the domain experts will include 600 law graduates, 450 crime scene investigators, 1,350 information technology (IT) experts with specialist qualifications and experience in law, commerce, forensics, digital forensics, data mining, data analysis etc for deployment as cyber detectives, financial detectives, homicide detectives, sexual assault and rape detectives.
The Punjab government will also recruit 460 counsellors, clinical psychologists and community and victim support officers for deployment at family counselling centres and women help desks in all districts.
33% women of the total recruitment
3,400 women will be recruited as part of the drive to enroll 10,000 more personnel in Punjab Police, mostly in the rank of sub-inspector and constables. This translates into 33% women of the total recruitment, said Gupta. Of the total recruitment of women, 300 will be recruited as SIs and more than 3,100 as constables.
Once these specialised officials join the police department in the second or third quarter of 2021, each of the 382 police stations in the state will have a police station law officer and a community and victim support officer.
170 major police stations of Punjab, including those in the border districts, will have forensic officers and crime data analysts. Cyber-crime detectives will be placed in each of the 100 sub divisions in the state.
In view of the increasing number of fatal accidents due to rise in traffic, 15 civil engineers and planners will soon be recruited as road safety associates.