New criminal laws: Why you may find it easier to approach cops now

NEW DELHI: Starting today, people in Delhi may find approaching the police easier. With the new laws being rolled out from July 1, not only can they file an FIR online from Delhi Police's portal, but can also report a crime from outside the city through a zero FIR. Not just that, the people can also expect police to be fairer with audio and video recording of procedures, such as search and seizures, and even questioning having been made mandatory.

The new laws also have deadlines prescribed for following of procedures so that the police are accountable and people are not left to wait endlessly.
With Delhi Police directly reporting to ministry of home affairs unlike states, the city cops are under greater pressure for a glitch-free implementation of the new laws. Union home minister Amit Shah is learnt to have given clear instructions to LG Vinay Kumar Saxena and police commissioner Sanjay Arora for ensuring a smooth rollout. Shah has also asked the top cop to give directions to the supervisory officers to have zero tolerance for any deviation from the prescribed norms laid down in the new laws, sources said.
With around 40,000 cops having completed their extensive training in BNS (Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita) and BNSS (Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita) -- which have replaced IPC and CrPC -- Delhi Police seems confident of rolling out the new laws.
"Till June 24, as many as 36,716 cops had been trained. We have now made subsidiary training units, which will train cops at the district level. This exercise will go on till every single cop has been trained in the new laws," said a senior officer. In the first two phases, around 21,000 cops received the training and over 17,000 have been trained in the third phase, which is ongoing.
In the coming months, Delhi Police may also consider procuring tablets for its investigating officers to fulfil the requirements laid out in BNS, it was discussed at a recent meeting with police brass. The tablets will have police's app, e-praman, installed on them and will be connected to CCTNS (crime and criminal tracking network and system) in order to file e-FIRs and chargesheets online.
This will allow them to make videos of the crime scene and take pictures with GPS and time-tagging.
"There is emphasis on ensuring that the evidence collected is authentic and that the investigating officer is present at the crime scene. The hash value of this digital evidence will be preserved to rule out any tampering and ensuring unaltered evidence reaches the court," a senior cop said.
The app and the tablet will help cops upload the videos directly to the crime and criminal tracking and network system. The sanctity of digital evidence is the top priority for cops and the plan is to use a cloud-based service besides the regular storage to save their crime scene videos, photographs and audio files, officials said.
In the new app, the cops are heavily relying upon the “hash values” to establish that there has been no tampering with the digital evidence. “If the hash value changes, it would mean there has been some modification or tampering. All changes will be recorded,” said an official. The cloud service will also ensure that there is a backup of case files and evidence.
Four special commissioners -- Ravindra Yadav, Chhaya Sharma, Madhup Tiwari and Shalini Singh -- have spearheaded the project since Jan. Around 4,000 dummy FIRs have been registered at 200 police stations in the city in the last few weeks and the policemen have carried out equal number of mock arrests and seizures under BNS and BNSS. The policemen have also filmed over 1,200 dummy crime scenes during this exercise, sources said.
The policemen have been training in the new laws since Jan this year. Special CP Chhaya Sharma was handpicked for the job. "We started off by training around 5,500 frontline personnel in the first lot. Handbooks and pocket guides were prepared and a comprehensive training programme was initiated. The objective was to keep it simple," Sharma said.
But training such a huge force was not a cakewalk. "It was a challenging task because the investigating officers and other personnel had to first unlearn the old laws and then be thorough with the new laws," said a senior officer.