Police across the country will have to work in coordination with one another: Amit Shah

April 22: Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah addressed the inaugural session of the 48th All India Police Science Congress in Bhopal today. On this occasion, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Ministers of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra and Nishith Pramanik and Director General of BPR&D, Balaji Shrivastava were also present.

In his remarks, the Union Home Minister said that the All India Police Science Congress has a very important contribution to make in policing of the country from two perspectives. One is coordination between the police across the country to deal with similar challenges and the other is the use of technology to stay two steps ahead of criminals. Since law and order is a state subject, police come under the direction of the elected government of the state. The police face a common challenge from armed groups. There are different states in the Left Wing Extremism zone but the challenge is the same. Coordination, policy and unity are needed to face these challenges, and if the state police work in isolation, then we will not be able to face all these challenges properly. There is no need to change the Constitution, but through meetings such as the All India Police Science Congress and DG’s Conference, some states can come together to discuss problems of their area and create a uniform policy.

Amit Shah said criminals are being equipped with new technology from across the globe and it is very important that police should be two steps ahead of criminals and for this the police also have to be modernized, tech-savvy and use technology till the beat level. Percolation will have to be happen. Until the use of technology reaches the constable and head constable, we cannot fight against new types of crimes. For this also the BPR&D has provided a platform. The Police Congress is also important for both these purposes and without this, we cannot ensure the internal security.

The Union Home Minister said the Government of India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the last 8 years, has achieved a huge success in finding a permanent solution to three problems  – terrorism in Kashmir, Left Wing Extremism and Narcotics and Armed Groups in the North East, which had been a threat to internal security for many years.

He said a 10-year policing strategy and the practice of annual reviews should be institutionalized in police departments. This is very important because now crimes are taking place which are not possible to fight without modernization of police, training, coordination between police in the states, coordination between police outside the state and imbibing technology. He said police across the country should imbibe the phrase “Data is the new science and Big Data is the solution to all problems”.

The Union Home Minister said police are sometimes accused of no action and sometimes extreme action, but we should inculcate the habit of natural reaction and that can only happen when the individual is dependent on the system and not the system on the individual. He said that now more than 16,000 police stations are online.
For Science of Police, we have to advance the use of Medical Science, Forensic Science, Management Science, Arms Science and Communications Science. Shah said the era of policing of the British era is over. Now knowledge-based, evidence-based and logic-based policing will have to be practiced and in this we will also have to change the science of police.