Performance of exclusive crime investigation wings created at select police stations to be reviewed, T.N. DGP tells Madras High Court

Director General of Police C. Sylendra Babu also told the court that the T.N. Police Academy had been asked to formulate a syllabus to impart training to police personnel who were part of the exclusive crime investigation wings, and training sessions would be conducted

Director General of Police C. Sylendra Babu on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court of having instructed Deputy Inspectors General of Police to review the progress of investigation conducted in various criminal cases by the exclusive crime investigation wings created in select police stations, across the State, on a pilot basis

A Division Bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and N. Anand Venkatesh were told by State Public Prosecutor (SPP) Hasan Mohamed Jinnah that the DGP had issued a circular in this regard to the DIGs and had also ordered that they should report progress to the Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), who will be supervising the overall operations.

The SPP also said the Tamil Nadu Police Academy in Chennai had been asked to formulate a syllabus to impart training to personnel who were part of the exclusive crime investigation wings and that the training sessions would be conducted at the in-service training centres in every police range.

A status report filed on behalf of the DGP before the High Court on Tuesday stated that the office of the SPP was also planning to have a periodic interaction with the personnel attached to the investigation wings by inviting sitting as well as retired judges to address them on various aspects related to investigations.

It was while dealing with a criminal appeal related to a murder case in October last year that the Division Bench had impressed upon the police, the need to create exclusive investigation wings in every police station to only probe crimes such as murder, dacoity, robbery, kidnapping and burglary, without being burdened with law and order duties.

Accordingly, the DGP reported to the court on November 7 that he had created such wings at all police stations in Coimbatore city and in 11 taluk police stations in every police range across the State on a pilot basis. It was stated that police stations with high number of criminal cases had been chosen for the establishment of these wings.

Appreciating the DGP for having taken immediate follow-up action, the Bench had decided to monitor the performance of the investigation wings. On Tuesday, the judges asked Mr. Jinnah to come up with a good nomenclature for the wings so that the cases investigated and prosecuted by them could be tracked separately.