Even as the chorus for smart policing is growing louder in the country, the pace of police verification in Guwahati continues to be embarrassingly sluggish.
A city-based entrepreneur revealed that it took the city police around two months to reply to a verification request sent by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), Kolkata.
The entrepreneur said, “I am trying to open an art gallery at Kolkata airport along with a partner from Bangaluru. As it is a sensitive zone, the security agency required our verification.” The verification of his partner, who is based in Bangaluru, was completed by the Bangaluru police within seven days, whereas in Guwahati, the entrepreneur was not even informed for around 20 days that he had to submit his documents to the local police for verification.
The verification request from BCAS was received by the office of the commissioner of police on 13th November, 2017. It was sent to the local police station for verification on 20th November. On not receiving any calls from the police station, the entrepreneur himself contacted the police in the first week of December and only then he was asked to submit certain documents. The local police sent the verification report to the office of the commissioner of police on 22nd December 2017. After a few days the verification was sent to the Special Branch headquarters at Kahilipara and finally the verification was dispatched through registered post to BCAS on 10th January 2018.
A source in the Assam Police Special Branch headquarters said that they do not have the budget to send verification reports through speed post.
Similarly, there are many passport verification requests pending with various police stations in the city and in some cases the police take around two to three months to complete the verification.
A source in the state team of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) informed that the police are expected to complete verification for passports within 15 days which is not happening.
After the Ministry of External Affairs requests a case of passport verification to the commissioner of police, the request gets uploaded in the CCTNS system and the required local police needs to contact the applicant and verify the details.
The source said that if the senior city police officials monitor the verification status regularly, only then the system will improve. But the senior police officials always have an excuse of low manpower in the police stations for expediting such matters.
CCTNS fails to serve its purpose
The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) portal was launched by the Assam Police in January 2016 with the purpose of reducing public footfall at police stations. After two years of the launch the public is unaware of any such system.
A source in the CCTNS state team said, “In the last two years we have received zero requests from the public.”
During the launch it was claimed by police officials that the public could request for tenant verification, domestic help verification/employee verification, character certificate, protest or strike request, procession request and event performance request through CCTNS. The request would be processed within 10 to 45 days.
After two years now only two services are available through CCTNS (tenant and employee verification). During the launch in January 2016 it was also said by the police department that within a few months the public would also be able to lodge complaints through the system which never started.
The source said that the awareness level among the people is low because of which the police department is getting poor response from them.
The CCTNS team had asked for a budget from the state government for an awareness campaign but the file is pending with the finance department, the source revealed.
State nodal officer for CCTNS, Asst Director General of Police (ADGP) AK Jha said, “The public is not using the system because tenant verification is not mandatory in the state.” He requested the public to use the system for tenant verification which is important for investigating crimes.
Talking about mandating tenant verification, DGP Mukesh Sahay said, “Mandating everything is perhaps not the answer, but we will examine this.”
The Bhubaneswar and Kolkata commissionerate mandated tenant verification as soon as the commissionerate was formed there, but after three years of commissionerate formation in Guwahati, tenant verification is yet to be mandated.