The Prakasam police will focus on tackling increasing cyber crime in 2017 anticipating exponential increase in the number of digital transactions, Superintendent of Police C.M. Trivikram Varma said on Saturday.
Expressing satisfaction over the efforts of the police to bring down major crimes bearing fruit during 2016, he told a press conference here that a cyber cell would be formed and training provided to the personnel at the sub-divisional level to check criminal activities carried out by means of computers or the Internet.
Stating that electronic surveillance had helped bring down crime rate across the district during this year, he said over a 1,000 CCTVs with GPS tracking system would be installed in different towns in the district during 2017. Already, 90 CCTVs were put in place in Ongole and eight other towns in the district to curb law and order violation, regulation of traffic and prevention and detection of crime, he added.
The pilot Finger Print Identification Networking System (FINS) helped screen over 3,000 suspects so far and nab 20 offenders, thanks to uploading of State-wide data, he said, adding that the Jail Release Monitoring System developed by the National Informatics Centre had helped the district keep track of convicts with the information provided by other districts to curb new offences.
The response time on complaints received through Instant Complaint Logging Internet Kiosks(I-Clik) had been reduced from the earlier seven days to three days. As many as 2,542 complaints were disposed of during 2016, he added.
The e-challans sent to 1.35 lakh motor vehicle offenders using android device had helped detect 34 stolen vehicles, he said.
The e-office launched in the district saw uploading of 186 files to all sections in the District Police Office and transfer of 56 files to the Collector's office digitally and going forward, the district police office would go paperless, he explained.
WhatsApp number
He wanted the public to share information relating to crime on WhatsApp through mobile no: 9440627199.
There had been a 6.98 per cent fall in crime in 2016 over the previous year with robberies decreasing by a maximum of 47.05 per cent. The number of fatal road accidents had declined by 7.04 per cent to 462, leaving 552 dead in 2016 as against 541 in 2015, he said, adding that Rs. 92.28 lakh had been collected as fine from violators of the Motor Vehicles Act.
Referring to trends in crime in a decade, he said crime against women had increased by 24.09 per cent to 955 incidents and crime against SCs and STs by 80.31 per cent to 229 incidents during 2016, while economic offences had come down by 29.09 per cent to 195 incidents compared to the offences in 2006.
