The Mumbai police will soon have a dedicated messenger service, similar to popular messaging applications such as WhatsApp, to communicate among themselves.
The move is only the latest among others that the Mumbai Police are working on to turn the force into a modern, paper-free and high-tech department.
Senior police officers told The Hindu that the messenger app would be only available to policemen, and would be operated from a dedicated, secure server.
A senior police officer said, “The messenger service will be hosted by the same server that will host our intranet system, and only policemen will be able to download it from this server. The service is currently in the development stage, and measures are being taken to make it as secure as possible.”
Another officer said that the service would be used to share routine updates, which are currently shared on the phone or via text messages. These include reports of developments in investigations, fresh cases registered, status updates of cases at trial stage, and action taken on issues reported to the police.
In the current system, junior forward an update to their senior officers, who then forward it to their seniors. This happens several times in a day.
An officer said, “By sharing the message on the messenger service, all concerned officers will get the updates at the same time. Other senior officers can also chip in with suggestions, or information. In case of sensitive cases, the updates can be shared on closed groups,” said the officer.
Last week, Mumbai Police Commissioner D.D. Padsalgikar announced a slew of measures, including uploading profiles of serving policemen on a common server, sharing daily police notice on the server as opposed to circulating it in printed form, sending routine communications between officers through an intranet system, and an app that will automatically dial the police helpline. The Special Branch of the Mumbai Police, too, introduced a system of accepting applications and issuing police clearance certificates online from last week.
