The Uttar Pradesh Police has launched a ‘C-Plan’ smartphone application that will help them keep a tab on anti-social elements to counter their nefarious designs in time. The app, launched at the new police headquarters in Lucknow, will not only help police to be informed of simmering communal tensions or other disputes taking place even in far-flung villages by common people, but also help them verify the received information.
According to police sources, the department has identified 10 people in every village, known as Sambhrant-10, across the state who will inform about anti-social elements, simmering communal tensions or land disputes taking place in their respective villages through the app.
“The project, which was first run on a pilot basis during the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 and monitored from the old DGP headquarters, will now be replicated across the state. The move seeks to promote a collaborative bond between the community and police to prevent and solve a crime and social disputes. Recently, rumour mills on child lifting have been working overtime, leading to a spurt in mob lynching incidents,” a senior official said.
“The app is an initiative aimed at assisting better community policing in the state and bringing down the crime rate by improving the police-public partnership with the help of technology. The move will allow the selected community members to have a greater voice in setting priorities and their engagement in efforts to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhoods,” said Inspector General of Police (law and order), Praveen Kumar.
The selected people will be responsible to solve local problems by preventing and detecting crimes, restoring law and order and bringing down crime against women and weaker sections.
According to sources, there are around 1.6 lakh villages in Uttar Pradesh and the department has selected 10 lakh people across the state who will be engaged in the C-plan smartphone application project.
The selected people belong to different communities, and the police department claims it has ensured that the selected members do not have a criminal background.
“Knowing the name of the district and village, police officials will easily be able to connect with Sambhrant-10 members through a pan-Uttar Pradesh database that could be accessed through the app. The C-plan app will soon be integrated with the Uttar Pradesh Dial 100 service and an S-10 will also be able to contact police personnel in police response vehicles (PRVs) in an emergency,” Kumar said.