Building a digital connection,  Punjab Police has “now” become “social” to counter the growing threat of gangsters and criminals with the help of  ‘social media’ driven  online campaign.

With its  Facebook page (www.facebook.com/PunjabPoliceIndia), Twitter account (www.twitter.com/PunjabPolice) and YouTube channel, Punjab Police expects to come closer to the people. Formally launching the state police’s online campaign, the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday said  the social media campaign of the police will go a long way in bridging the gap between the police and the citizens.

He said it will also help in tackling the abuse of social media by gangsters and criminals seeking to spread terror in the state.The social media accounts will provide an effective forum for information dissemination, feedback, complaint channelling, said Amarinder.

He called upon the police to use the social media in a productive manner to connect with various sections of the society, particularly the youth, in order to provide transparent, responsive and effective policing.

The director general of police (DGP), Suresh Arora, said the police would use the three social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) to come closer to the people. Gangsters and anti-social elements, even behind bars in various jail  in Punjab, have been using social media to carry out their nefarious operations.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Police on Monday also took a digital leap in strengthening its capabilities to meet the contemporary law and order challenges by rolling out the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) project for tracking of crimes and criminals.

“The CCTN `Go-Live’ roll-out has set the stage for the state to go paperless in terms of FIRs  (first information reports) and General Diaries (general complaints), which will now be updated online by the police officials, who will eventually also be provided Tablets for this purpose,” an official spokesperson said.

Congratulating the police for the initiative, the CM said with the move, Punjab has joined the ranks of the few states in the country to roll it out. While 13-year-old data (FIRs and General Diaries) have already been digitized as part of this project, all future data will be uploaded live from now on.The project, which now covers 600 locations, including 400 Police Stations and higher offices from sub-division to state level, currently has a database of 13 years (2005 to 2017) for about 7.6 Lakh FIRs and total 29 Lakh records of different investigation related forms, which can be searched and retrieved from the database online.