Police stations across the district will get new investigation kits this week, Superintendent of Police A.S. Rao said here on Sunday.
The kits had been developed with inputs from the district police, he said.
Mr. Rao told presspersons that the kit contained four or five types of equipment which would aid investigation. He said that the kit had been prepared based on the needs he police officials.
The two-foot wide box contained equipment to cordon-off an area, electronic gadgets such as a laptop (with portable internet connection), digital camera and digital voice-recorder; equipment necessary to mark, collect, pack and seal evidence at the scene of the crime including a fingerprint kit; and miscellaneous items such as body bags, measuring tape, torches, gloves, magnetic compass. In all, the kit contains 64 items.
However, Mr. Rao said the box had been sourced from the U.K.
An investigation kit was necessary for the police force as “crime investigation forms 50 per cent of our work”. However, just providing the kit was not sufficient, but training to use the equipment was equally important, he said. He pointed out that the old kit box was not used by the police for investigation, he said. At present, one batch had been trained in using the equipment.
Mr. Rao said it was important to set up a system where the used equipment was replaced.
A weekly inventory would be taken by the official responsible for it.
He said the kit had been developed through the annual plan.
The State Government had sanctioned Rs. 10 lakh for the purpose under the head “police station equipment”.
The cost of one kit was Rs. 46,000.
The district police recovered stolen property estimated at Rs. 11 lakh between July and October and returned property estimated at about Rs. 10 lakh to their owners here on Sunday.
