Will take help of artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology, drones, and machine learning to solve crimes.
New Delhi: The Delhi Police has drawn up elaborate plans to make use of effective and modernised technology in the detection and solving of crime in the national capital in the coming years. Among some of its plan to modernise and integrate technology into the functioning of the police force, the Delhi Police is going to take help of artificial intelligence, facial recognition technology, drones, machine learning, predictive policing techniques, among other such technological leaps.
Addressing the annual press conference of the Delhi Police on Thursday, Police Commissioner, Rakesh Asthana said that the Delhi Police under the “Safe City Project” will work with the help of technology to predict and solve crimes and other law and order issues of the city. For this, the Commissioner of Police, Asthana said that the Delhi Police is in the final rounds of talks in setting up a world class and state of the art integrated Command and Control Centre at the Delhi Police Headquarters in Delhi, where trained staff would be present round the clock analysing video footages, using facial recognition technology to detect criminals and criminal activities and help solve crimes in the city within much shorter time.
“I can certainly say that the Command-and-Control Centre that the Delhi Police has planned to set up would be one of the best such facility in the world. It would have the feed from all the CCTVs cameras that would be installed in the entire city. Technically trained staff would be there to manage and operate the entire centre,” Asthana said.
Delhi would be wrapped in with more than 2 lakh CCTV cameras in the coming two years. The Delhi government has proposed to set up 1.40 lakh CCTV cameras in the city and additionally the Delhi Police would add 10,000 more CCTV cameras, while more than 15,000 of such CCTV cameras are already present in the city.
The Police Commissioner also stressed on the use of drone technology in the coming years. He said that drones would become an integral part of policing in the coming time and that the Delhi Police would be using drones to handle law and order situations in the city, manage traffic, secure vulnerable installations and provide real time feed to the Command-and-Control Centre with situational awareness.
Asthana also said that the Delhi Police would also be investing in anti-drone technology in the coming years where such technology would equip the police force to take down rogue drones that enter the city. As part of its modern and technology-based policing, the Delhi Police has already invested in e-beat system, e-FIR, use of fingerprint and palm print technology to solve and detect crimes in the city, mobile forensics amongst others.
Apart from this, the Police Commissioner also stressed on the fact that the Cyber Crimes and its mitigation has become an important responsibility of the Delhi Police and therefore he apprised the media that the Delhi Police is investing in technologies to detect and solve cyber crime cases. The Delhi Police has already set up cyber crime police stations in every police district of the city and that the Delhi Police had received around 1,15,013 calls of cyber fraud or cyber crime in the last year.
Out of the 1,15,013 calls of cyber fraud received by the Delhi Police, 24,219 of those calls were related to financial fraud. The Delhi Police also informed that a total of Rs 4.31 crores have been frozen by IFSO (Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations) unit of the Delhi Police.
Crime Statistics of Delhi
Every year the Delhi Police provides the crime statistics of the city through its annual press conference, similarly even this year, the Commissioner of Delhi Police, Rakesh Asthana on Thursday briefed the media about the crime situation that Delhi witnessed in 2021. According to the Delhi Police, the incidence of crime has seen an increase in the national capital last year, as compared to that of 2020. The total incidence of crime that Delhi recorded in 2021 was 3,06,389 as against 2,66,070. Out of which 5,740 incidences of heinous crime was reported, while 2,87,563 incidences of other IPC crimes were reported in the city last year. While 13,086 incidents of crimes related to local and special laws were reported in the city.
The Delhi police also informed that the city has seen a slight decrease in the number of murder cases, where such cases has fallen by 3% in 2021 as compared to 2020 and 2019. While the police said that the solving rate and arrests in the city have gone up significantly, where in the city police recorded an increase of 17% in the number of arrests last year, as compared to 2020.
The Delhi Police said that last year it arrested 1,47,115 people for carrying out various crimes in the city as against 1,25,986 persons being arrested for criminal activities in the city. Cases of robbery and dacoity have also seen a slight rise in Delhi last year as compared to 2020. According to the Delhi Police data, the city police received 15,146 PCR calls for robbery and dacoity while 2359 cases for the same were registered and more than 4,449 people were arrested for the same last year.
Snatching, which has become a public nuisance in the city, has also recorded an increase in its instances last year. A total of 9,383 cases of snatching has been registered by Delhi Police last year as against 22,299 PCR calls being received for the same. While 7,326 people were arrested for carrying out snatching activities in the city.
Asthana while speaking to the media said that the Delhi Police is taking strict action against snatchers in the city and that patrolling vehicles have been increased in the snatching prone areas in the capital. “We have noticed that mobile phones and ornaments are the most target objects of snatchers and for this, we have already tied up with the Department of telecom and have asked them to block the IMEI numbers of the stolen mobiles so that the stolen mobiles become of no use to them and incidences go down. Rest assured the Delhi Police is cracking down heavily on the snatchers and addressing the issue proactively,” Asthana said.