The city under a government of India scheme is all set to get 10 district mobile forensic science laboratories that will be set up inside designated police stations and will provide crucial forensic backup. FSL Delhi at present, apart from shouldering the entire load of Delhi Police cases, also takes up 10% cases of CBI. The final list of police stations that will have these labs are in the process of being drawn up but according to JCP crime Alok Kumar, the entire infrastructure support apart from space, will be provided by Delhi government.

The labs are a part of a plan of the Union ministry of home which under the XI Five Year Plan 2008-12 has started the process of opening 12 regional forensic science laboratories -- each of which will cost Rs 4 crore and 100 district mobile laboratories each of which will cost Rs 52 lakh. Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with 10 laboratories each would get the biggest chunk of this largess.

According to R N Sharma, joint secretary (police, FSL), department of home, Delhi government, the mobile laboratories that will be manned by personnel from FSL, Rohini, would not just reduce the waiting period of forensic tests but also ensure that there is greater coordination between cops and forensic experts. ``It has all been planned at the central level, we are only executing it,'' Sharma said.

FSL director V K Goyal said the staff for the mobile units is yet to be sanctioned but he is ready to provide the necessary expert and other technical backup. He also has his own elaborate expansion plans. FSL is all set to start its own cybercrime unit -- for which two officials have been sent to Shimla for training and also audio-video laboratory where audio and video inputs can be analysed/magnified to help in investigations. Once they are in place, Goyal is confident that Delhi's dependence on FSLs in Chandigarh and Kolkata and CFSL Hyederabad would be over.

The orientation session for the programme will be held on August 18, 2008 at 11:15 am at the Shah Auditorium, Civil Lines.

The orientation session will be graced by Dr. H.R. Bharadwaj, Union Minister of Law & Justice, Government of India; Mr. Tejendra Khanna, Lt. Governor, NCT of Delhi & Chancellor, GGSIPU; Prof. K.K. Aggarwal, Vice Chancellor, GGSIPU and Mr. Y.S. Dadwal, Commissioner of Police, Delhi.

The varsity had earlier conducted a six-weeks training programme in 'Cyber Crime Investigation & Computer Forensics' for almost 100 investigating officers of Delhi Police and two officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

A major reason for this is the short staff strength of the Transport department as against "better reach" of the traffic personnel, officials said.

Already, as part of their routine prosecutions, Delhi Traffic Department challans 500 autorickshaw drivers per day on an average for violating traffic rules. They also conduct regular drives against au- torickshaws.

"We have got a clarification from the Transport Department. We can now suspend the permits of those autorickshaw drivers who are violating permit conditions as laid down by the Transport Department," Joint Commissioner of Police S.N. Shrivastava said.

During the on-the-spot checks and challans, if any driver is found violating permit conditions, he will first be issued a notice and suspension of permit will follow after due course of natural justice, he said.

Commissioner (Transport) R.K. Verma said, "This comes as part of our joint efforts in compliance to the HC directives.

Also, we have obvious restrictions in terms of staff strength." "Also, if a particular autorickshaw driver is found to be frequently violating permit conditions, his permit will be cancelled," Verma added.

Hundred-odd personnel, especially trained to tackle cyber crime, will now be provided with laptops and computers. Dadwal, in a valedictory ceremony on Tuesday at the Teen Murti Bhawan, said these policemen have been given six weeks' training in handling of cyber crime, which has seen an eight-fold increase in the last five years.

The laptops will be provided shortly, a proposal for which has already been made to the government.

Earlier, technical experts had to be called in, which delayed the process as far as the police were concerned. Now, with policemen from all over Delhi being trained with the same expertise, it will allow the police to step in faster.

Maintaining that the move was not taken due to staff shortage, senior officials of the Delhi Police said the decision came so that the recruits could be given "on-job training".

The policemen, in the age group of 20-25 years, have been deployed at market places, busy intersections and other crowded places making it their first major assignment, which will give them a feel of the situation as the national capital was on high alert.

According to an official release, violation of the rule would attract a fine of Rs.100 for the first time and Rs.300 for the second and subsequent offences.

Till July 15 this year the traffic police had prosecuted 578 bus drivers for playing music.

Mr. Dadwal was speaking at the Valedictory function organized by the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) to facilitate almost 100 investigating officers of Delhi Police and two officers of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who have successfully completed their six-weeks training programme in 'Cyber Crime Investigation & Computer Forensics', conducted by the University School of Information Technology (USIT) of GGSIPU.

Mr. Dadwal also announced that 100 more officers will undergo similar training at the varsity.

The new headquarters will come up on an area of about 3 hectares with a floor area of about 50,000 square metres. Around US$35 million (approximately Rs 150 crore) will be spent on the project.

The proposal for the new building, which had been pending for a long time, has been approved by the Government of India recently. The government has also sanctioned the amount to be incurred on the project.

The multi-storey building will come up right behind the Parliament Street police station. Officers said construction work might start by the end of this year, once the Letter Of Award is given to a private company. The project is expected to be complete by 2011.

As per the new directions, several police stations that are heritage buildings now would be given a complete uplift. The Parliament Street police station building that is over 300 years old being one of them.

Commissioner of Police YS. Dadwal on Saturday summoned his deputies, including the special commissioners of police, and reviewed the living conditions at not only the police barracks but police colonies.

The complainant policemen - Govind Sharma, Subhash Vats, Onkar Kapil and Virender Chauhan - said that they felt hu- miliated, as they knew several of their junior colleagues possessed credit cards.

They have appealed to the court to direct the bank to pay a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the mental agony the bank caused them.

The complaint said in December last year, an official of the bank approached them to accept a credit card. The four agreed and completed the formalities. But they did not hear from the bank again.

The anomaly entailed in the law of 1955 leaves senior police officers of states often reporting to their juniors after the age of 54.

Taking a serious note of the anomaly in the law, namely Rule 5(3) of the Indian Police Service (Appointment by Promotion) Regulation, 1955, a vacation bench of Justice Altmas Kabir and Justice G.S. Singhvi issued notices to the central government.

It issued notices to the home ministry, the personnel and public grievances ministry, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and the Rajasthan government, asking them why this law should not be struck down.

The anomaly was brought to the notice of the court by two senior Rajasthan police officers - Bhilwara Additional Superintendent of Police Bhanwar Singh Nathawat and Chittorgarh's Additional Superintendent of Police Satish Kumar Khurana.

The police would soon initiate a tenant verification drive, wherein all the foreign nationals would be required to produce all the documents, supporting their stay in the Capital or any other State in India.

"We have apprehended several Nigerian nationals involved in cyber crime, and recently arrested a German national for the illicit trafficking of European drug, LSD or Acid. The German national had already elapsed the time period for a stay in the country, and be living on rent in different parts of the country while they was in India" said Alok Kumar Verma, Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch.

The police suspect that scores of foreign nationals residing in the country were leaving, as students in the city and they do not produce any documents confirming the time period allocated to them for education in the city, or any other documents to the owner of the house. As a result the police do not get any concrete information about the unlawful activities these nationals are participating in.

The proposal that was sent to the Delhi government last year had received a go-ahead. ``The Expression Of Interest (EOI) has been issued last January and we are well into the process of awarding the contract. All police stations in Delhi will get a fingerprint machine in the next six months,'' said ACP Rajan Bhagat, spokesperson, Delhi Police.

According to senior police officials, the modernization was badly needed. ``At present, there are only ten such machines available at the 10 district headquarters. Finger printing is a basic investigating procedure and precious time is wasted due to lack of these machines,'' said a senior police officer.

Five months on, the Delhi Police says the scheme has achieved a lot of success and that it has already solved 56 cases with the help of this scheme. These cases include major murders like the Pitampura double murder and the Kalkaji murder, along with several cases involving other crimes like rapes, robberies, thefts and snatchings.

The department says it has already briefed 70,000 people in the Capital about the scheme and has asked them to help in bringing down the crime rate. These people include street vendors, rickshawpullers, chowkidaars, barbers, parking lot attendants, security guards posted at banks and private and government organisations, TSR/taxi drivers, bus drivers and conductors, porters at railway stations/ISBTs/airports and resident welfare associations. All identities have been kept secret.

A senior officer said personnel are regularly meeting these people and are briefing them about ways of informing the officer nearest to their area about unscrupulous activities.

Delhi Police PRO Rajan Bhagat said: "This kind of `criminal intelligence' was used by the police earlier as well but it has been given a shape for the first time, with every officer meeting his sources and keeping a record of their meetings, conversations with sources and the information collected. More and more citizens are responding to the scheme. They don't mind helping unless their identity is disclosed."

Officers said beat constables are playing the main role in the eyes and ears scheme, as they know their areas better and they know members of the public. Either SHOs or ACPs brief `informers' every week; even joint commissioners of police have participated in the briefings.

Officers said the scheme's success is a first. "Earlier, when there was no help from vendors, chowkidaars, drivers and barbers, we had to gather information on our own. But now, these people inform us about criminal movement and many times, crimes like robberies and thefts have been averted," an officer said.

The police have said that thanks to the scheme they know more about gangs, history sheeters, petty criminals and juvenile offenders. Officers said they are going to encourage increased involvement of the public in the scheme.