City police to get I-Bikes, focus on collecting forensic evidence

AURANGABAD: After successfully introducing Investigation-Bikes (I-Bikes) in the four police units of

Aurangabad

range comprising Aurangabad rural, Jalna, Beed and

Osmanabad

, the acting city police chief has decided to introduce the concept in the city as well.

The first-of-its-kind concept in the country has brought laurels to the Aurangabad range in the past few months. And with this initiative being pushed in the city, it is set to become the first commissionerate in the state to have an I-Bike squad.

The initiative was started by Aurangabad range IGP

Milind Bharambe

and he is likely to implement the concept across the state. If implemented, they may turn out to be an effective alternative for Mobile Forensic Van (MFV) that were given to each of the 35 superintendent of polices offices and 10 police commissionerates in the state by spending around Rs 27 crore.

Much to the dismay of the police as well as the state home department, MFVs for want of technical experts, have failed to deliver on the expected lines. Policemen of the rank of sub-inspectors trained in collecting forensic evidences in scientific manner would be deputed as I-bike officers with a directive to be the first one to reach the crime scene and cordon-off the area before collecting all the forensic evidence.

The officers having degrees in science would be handpicked, apart from being trained by forensic experts and criminal lawyers, to make them understand what has to be done.

Elaborating further, acting city police chief

Bharambe

said, “On one hand we have limited resources, while on the other we have a lot of things to be done. In such a scenario, all we have done is identified our priorities and are working on them accordingly.”

He said that apart from maintaining law and order, the prevention, detection and conviction of crimes is the biggest responsibility of the police. As per the plans, the city will have four I-bikes allotted to each of the four city police divisions.

Bharambe reiterated that compared to all the options put together, the I-bikes have more benefits including that the I-bike officer no more remains dependent on a driver, it has low maintenance cost, better mobility than four-wheelers and the ability to reach even remotest of crime scene directly.

Moreover, the police teams do not even have to wait for the forensic experts for collection of crucial evidences from the crime scene.