Mumbaipolice.org is updated daily to give information on name, address, characteristics of arrested individuals, and also their charges
Posted On Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Mumbai police website (www.mumbaipolice.org) has added a section which lists the names of people arrested across various stations in the city. The list is updated daily and the names of those arrested by crime branch units, the economic offences wing and the social service branch are also mentioned here.
There have been complaints that the police just pick up people for interrogation and do not tell the family whether the person is in their custody.
“The step was taken to increase transparency,” says Deven Bharti, deputy commissioner of police (crime branch), “and to make the police more people-friendly. The site is updated daily and as early as possible by the police website department.”
Apart from names, the section also has information about those held.
“It has details about the sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) under which the person has been arrested, his or her case number, address of their native place, identification mark and the date of arrest,” says a crime branch officer.
The website department gets the relevant information from the statistics department (also known as the computer cell) and feeds it into the system. “The statistics department collects the data from police stations every day, for their records,” says the officer.
Whenever the arrested person gets bail, his or her name is struck off the list. “Care is taken to ensure that those out on bail are not shown as arrested,” says the officer, “Since the police stations are already in touch with the statistics department, it becomes easier to update information on the website.”
The police website also gives information about the status of passport applications, missing persons, stolen motor vehicles, details about arms licences and procedures to obtain police permissions and NOCs (no objection certificate) for events.
Along with names, the section has details about various Sections of IPC under which the person has been held, the case number, person’s contact info, date of arrest etc