Number of Crimes Reported in the city fall

The statistics also showed that the number of crimes registered under the Indian Penal Code had fallen in the city by 22.2 per cent last year. While over 17,000 crimes had been registered under the IPC in Kochi in 2012, fewer than 14,000 cases were registered in 2013. “The city police try to take quick action when a case is reported to deter crime. We also focus on taking preventive action to bring down the crime rate in the city,” Commissioner James said. 

Asia-Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements (ISLA) Award 2013

International award for State police

Innovative initiatives in ensuring cyber security

The "c0c0n" The International Cyber Security  and Policing Conference organised by the Kerala Police has won the Asia-Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements (ISLA) Award 2013, for its ‘innovative and timely initiatives in ensuring cyber security.

Kerala State Police Chief Sri.K.S. Balasubramanian IPS will receive the award at the inaugural function of Cocon 2013 – an International Cyber Security Conference in Thiruvananthapuram on September 27. The award was instituted by (ISC)2 – the largest not-for-profit membership body of certified information security and software security professionals across the world.

W. Hord Tipton, executive director of (ISC)2 said, “we congratulate Kerala Police, as their passion to protect goes beyond their daily jobs. They invest their time and energy to mentor and educate those around them.”

The award comes for the police initiative to spread awareness about cyber security. The international conference, presently in its fifth consecutive year, has had more than 125 sessions on two different tracks covering four security domains.

These efforts helped the police win the award, which is meant, “to recognise the ongoing commitment by information security leaders in Asia-Pacific who have significantly enhanced the workforce by demonstrating a leadership role in an information security workforce improvement initiative, programme or project.

‘’Cocon serves as a premier international forum to highlight the importance of empowering citizens, businesses and government to improve their cyber security preparedness,

All gentlemen can be officers

If you ever had a yen for uniform and never got an opportunity to wear one, this might be your chance.

The State police are all set to raise a ‘voluntary force’ of civilians with expertise in various fields, including IT, medicine and law, to assist the law enforcement as ‘uniformed non-commissioned part time officers.’

They will be declared as Special Police Officers (SPO) under the Kerala Police Act and accorded ‘honorary Sub Inspector and Honorary Inspector ranks’ based on their ‘qualification, expertise and contribution’ to the force. Their uniform will be ‘smart and distinctive’ with shoulder badges indicating their rank.

A board of top officials will select the ‘Community Oriented Police Officers’ (COPs). After a month of basic police training, they will assist in law enforcement for a minimum 40 hours every month. Their service timings will be flexible.

Only civic minded persons who are profitably employed need apply. The police will bestow medals and promotions on those COPs who serve the force meritoriously. An Inspector General of Police (IGP) will command the force. They will be called to duty also in times of disasters and emergencies. The police will primarily recruit IT professionals to assist in cyber crime investigations, hardware engineers to maintain its computer networks, cyber security experts, lawyers to aid criminal investigation and counsel victims of crime, accountants to assist the Frauds Squad, veterinarians to support dog and mounted police units, doctors, front office managers and marine operations specialists.

Psychologists will help the police assist victims of crime, chiefly women and children, and counsel couples involved in domestic disputes. The selection process includes an entrance test, interview, medical assessment, and fitness tests and background checks. The recruits will take the Police Oath and turn out in good order for their passing out parade. The police will train them in radio procedure, report writing, crime scene management, self-defence, non-lethal use of force, traffic management, human rights, first aid, use of hand-cuffs and batons. The COPs will have no powers to arrest nor will they be deployed in police operations involving the use of force. However, they can confiscate contraband items, illicit liquor, and drugs, detain minors indulging in substance abuse, enter and search premises to save life, remove abandoned vehicles and control traffic while serving in uniform. State Police Chief Shri.K.S. Balasubramanian IPS and IGP Shri.Manoj Abraham IPS are heading the project.

‘Cyberdome’ to keep track of cybercrimes

The Home Department will set up a cyber security centre at Technopark here to monitor the Internet for divisive activities and give the law enforcement agencies a constant technological edge over cyber criminals.

The project, termed “Kerala Police Cyberdome,” is envisaged as a high-tech nodal centre for cyber security solutions and innovations. It will come up in a 5,000-sq.ft secure facility at the IT hub.

The Cyberdome will act as an online police patrol. Its officers will generate intelligence on various cyber threats in near real time and track fugitives online by monitoring their online activities, including social networking sites.

It will create a digital repository of stolen and lost vehicles and travel documents, track online payments to prevent money laundering and channelling of funds to dubious organisations and issue cyber security advisories.

A steep increase in cyber crimes has been one of the fallouts of rapid digitisation in Kerala. The State has an estimated 2.5-crore mobile phone connections, 12-lakh Internet subscribers and 30-lakh landlines. Its television density is 85 per cent, compared with the national average of 56.8.

The influence of the cyber-world on crimes reported in Kerala is on the increase. Crime-related videos and reports on the Internet have encouraged copycat crimes in the State, chiefly online advance fee frauds, dissemination of divisive ideologies among impressionable youth, cyber stalking, defamation, black mail and malicious campaigns against individuals, communities and women.

Cyber criminals who constantly update their methods have rendered most cyber-forensic tools in the police inventory obsolete. Hence, the law-enforcement agencies require to update its technology constantly to keep pace with them, senior officials say.

The police have invited various IT companies to set an example in corporate social responsibility by providing the law-enforcement agencies their latest technology free of cost or at nominal rates and experts for specific tasks.

The centre will also function as an innovation unit where new software and solutions to policing issues will be tested. It will act in tandem with the music and film industry to crack down on online piracy.

It is envisaged also as a specialised agency which will provide technical expertise to crime and anti-corruption investigators. Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, State Police Chief Shri.K.S. Balasubramanian IPS and Inspector-General of Police Shri.Manoj Abraham IPS are guiding the implementation of the scheme.

Police museum draws praise

The collection of uniforms takes visitors through the history of the State’s police, from the era of the erstwhile kings of Travancore to the present.

Two years after it was inaugurated, the International Tourism Police Station and Police Museum at Mattanchery near here is receiving accolades for the variety of exhibits it has displayed.

The collection of uniforms takes visitors through the history of the State’s police, from the era of the erstwhile kings of Travancore to the present.

At the museum’s entrance is a replica of the Travancore king’s policeman armed with a spear and the king’s bodyguard draped in yellow ‘uniform’ – a dhoti.

Swords on show

Apart from swords used by the Travancore kingdom’s police force, the variety of hats used by police personnel are on display.

A police woman’s uniform of 1939 – the model resembling Western style of clothing, the type of canes used by IPS officers, a gun-powder pot made of bronze, an antique pistol and binoculars dating back to the 1920’s are also on display.

Interesting models

For those who have seen the policemen in khakhi knickers, if not in real life at least in films, the model presented here might be interesting. Then there are models of police women wearing khakhi sarees, the amiable blue uniform of Kerala’s tourism police, badges and ranks of police personnel, a constable of the pipe-band in ceremonial dress, a cop carrying a bugle, the mounted police and the dog squad. Coming to the present, there is a policeman in advanced riot dress, a commando in dangri, a photo of a commando carrying an automatic weapon, an anti-sabotage team with equipment and a policeman wearing bomb-disposal suit.

Free entry

“Many visitors to the Mattancherry heritage zone visit the museum, where entry is free.

Well received

It is well appreciated, especially by foreigners.The museum became a reality thanks to the efforts of the Kochi City Police,” police sources said.

Janamaithri Police Library

You will have to change your conventional concept about a police station when you are at Hill Palace.It is the first time in the history of Kerala Police that a library for the public is being opened with the intention of changing the conventional concepts regarding a police station.

The Janamaithri Police Library was dedicated to the public by Home Minister Shri.Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on 31.01.2011.

With 6,000 books collected from various voluntary donors that include litterateurs, professors and also ordinary workers, the air-conditioned and computerised library set up in a 900-sq.ft. Hall would be open for the public from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

A Professor at Rajagiri College of Engineering, Madhava Panicker, alone has donated 750 books to the library collection.There will be no membership fee to the library; only a photo-identity with the application would be needed. The air-conditioned police library hall is designed atop the police rest room in the Hill Palace Station complex. Besides a vast collection of books, a chess board, carom board and weaving machines are there in the library hall.

There will be people’s participation in the functioning of library. Selected people will be included in the advisory committee of the governing body. Cops will also help in the daily functioning of the library.A computerised catalogue will be installed in the library soon which will enable the public to know about the availability of the books.

The Janamaithri police library set up at the Tripunithura Janamaithri police station, gives a new dimension to community policing.

Global Community Policing Conclave 2010

The two-day Global Community Policing Conclave organised by the Kerala Police in association with the International Police Executive Symposium (IPES) was inaugurated by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on 03.11.2010 at Kochi City.

Major speakers in the two day sessions included David W. Purdy, senior police advisor for the Department of State, U.S.; Arie Van Sluis, assistant professor at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Habil Emil W. Plywaczewski, professor and director, chair of Criminal Law and head of Division of Penal Law and Criminology, University of Bialystok, Poland; Michael M. Berlin, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Coppin State University, U.S. Dilip K. Das, founding president of the International Police Executive Symposium (IPES); Sami Nabhan, head of the Service and Operations Section, and General Mounir Chaaban, head of the Training Section, Internal Security Forces, Lebanon; Muji Diah Setiani, assistant superintendent, and Am Sri Sudaryani Wahyuni, Interpol Police Inspector, Jakarta; Aleksandar Kostovski, International Rule of Law officer, Macedonia; and Shafiullah Walizada and Abdul Gheyas, Interpol Wing, Interior Ministry, Afghanistan, were the other speakers at this session.

Speaking on the first day of the Global Community Policing Conclave 2010, Nicholas Parker, management consultant on Community Safety and Criminal Justice Sectors, United Kingdom, said the community policing experiment in the U.K., which began in the seventies lost momentum after some time. This had to be revived recently.

He made a talk on ‘evolution of community policing in England and Wales' at the first session, which was about ‘historical development of COP'. Dr. Richard H. Ward of the University of New Haven, U.S., made the keynote address on ‘Community Policing: Its relevance today”.

The next session had some interesting moments as police officials and administrators from Afghanistan shared their experience. The theme of the session was ‘comparative COP theory and practice: Varieties of Communities'. The tone was set by Tonita Murray, senior advisor, Ministry of Interior, Afghanistan, with her talk titled “The Elephant, the Mouse and the Ant chase – an Afghan phantom COP'. She chaired the session.

In his address, Mustaq Rahim, Assistant Country Director, United Nations Development Project, said the police need to be civilianised and there was a need to build public awareness on police's traditional roles.

Other speakers in the session were Ahmad Zaki, UNDP Afghan project coordinator; Adbul Basir Yosufi, policy advisor and team leader, Ministerial Policy Unit, Ministry of Interior, Afghanistan; and Doel Mukherjee, consultant, Democratic Policing, UNDP Afghanistan.

Aswhani Kumar, Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, chaired the next session, which was the second in the series of Comparative COP Theory and Practice that focussed on ‘convergence between East and West'.

Speaking about ‘community policing as a tool in combating terrorism', former Director General of the National Investigation Agency and former Special Director General of Police, Jammu and Kashmir Radhavinod Raju said that formation of Village Defence Committees helped a lot in organising the local communities against terrorists.

The local communities were often used by the terrorists as a cover for insurgency or as observation posts along the border, he said.

In his address, Hermanprit Singh, Inspector General of Police, West Bengal, said that often non-combatants are caught between coercion by militants and distrust by police. Other challenges in policing conflict areas are doing proper impact analysis and risk averseness, which amounts to neglect of core policing.

Ashok Dohare, Director General of Police, Madhya Pradesh; T.K. Vinod Kumar, Deputy Director, SVP National Police Academy, Hyderabad, and Arvind Verma, of Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, also made presentations on various aspects of community policing.

Summing up the session, Tejdeep Kaur Menon, Additional Director General of Police, Andhra Pradesh, observed that community policing should not be made an excuse not to do regular policing. If it so happens, the movement should be wound up without it ending up as a sham.

Chief Minister of Kerala Sri. V.S. Achuthanandan inaugurated the valedictory session on 04.11.2010. Union Minister of State for Home Sri. Mullappally Ramachandran, Home Minister of Kerala Sri.Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and the Director General of Kerala Sri.Jacob Punnoose IPS attended the valedictory session.