Are you searching for the telephone number of the Rangpo police station in Sikkim or the residence number of the officer-in-charge of Kiltan police station in Lakshadweep?
The contact details of the police stations and officials across the country are now just a click away, the first time in the history of policing in the country.
The Bureau of Police Research and Development, government's police think-tank, has already uploaded contact details of police stations of six states and four Union territories on its website www.bprd.gov.in.
The postal address of police station with phone and fax numbers and residential phone numbers of station in-charges can be accessed through the Internet now, a senior BPRD official said.
It also has the contact details of offices of assistant police commissioners and deputy superintendents of police of respective areas. Some police stations have provided their e-mail IDs also.
The contact details of Andaman and Nicobar (20 police stations), Daman and Diu (2), Dadra Nagar Haveli (2), Delhi (116), Lakshadweep (9), Goa (24), Meghalaya (30), Mizoram (37), Sikkim (26) and Tripura (58) are provided in the site.
"This is a beginning to get police stations connected through the Internet which will improve connectivity and access and making policing in the country transparent," Kiran Bedi, BPRD director general, told PTI.
Bedi said BPRD envisages a scenario when all police stations across the country could be connected through e-mails where people can sent information to investigators and lodge complaints.
"We should develop a software such that a mail, which is a complaint or information, received at the police station is acknowledged automatically," Bedi said.
Incidents like refusal by officials to file FIRs on missing children and women in Uttar Pradesh's Nithari could have been avoided if there was a "fool-proof" mechanism to ensure accountability, she said.
"We should utilise available technology to plug the loopholes in the system and open it up," she said.
BPRD feels that providing contact details of police stations across the country would bring people and police together.
"We are now providing postal and telephone contacts. We are looking at a time of e-connectivity and e-interaction, a time when common people can come on a group chat and interact with the local Station House Officer," she said.
The BPRD is expected to provide contact details of police stations in the remaining states and union territories soon.
