Once Derided, Bihar’s Police Become Model for Other States

Pavel Rahman/Associated Press Two men with guns guarding a village in Bihar, Feb. 15, 1995.

Patna, BIHAR â€"It was 11 p.m. on a cold night in January when Raveendran Sankaran, a high-ranking Bihar police official, was woken up by a phone call from Srinagar.

“How do you conduct scientific investigations and speedy trials in Bihar” Abdul Ghani Mir, Jammu and Kashmir’s inspector general of police, asked him frantically. The highest-ranking police official in his state wanted Mr. Mir to explain Bihar’s model of police investigations to him the next morning. The men spent several hours on the phone while Mr. Sankaran talked about new innovations in criminal investigations.

Years ago, the idea that anyone would look to the Bihar police for advice on catching criminals would have been laughable. The northern Indian state, traditionally one of India’s poorest, was notorious for its widespread organized crime, often referred to as the “jungle raj,” and nearly invisible police presence.

But last month, the top police officials for all of India’s states met and passed a resolution to adopt the Bihar police force’s model of scientific investigations and speedy trials in their respective states.

“If worked upon well this model can significantly address the crime figures in India,” said Mr. Yashovardhan Azad, the Secretary of Security, for the government of India.

In Bihar, since a new crime-fighting model was adopted in 2006 the number of murders has dropped by 13 percent, robberies have declined by 46 percent and kidnappings for ransom have dropped by 65 percent, according to government figures. Since 2006, 12,861 criminals have been sentenced to life in prison, while 33,588 others have been sentenced for serious crimes, with a total of 80,199 convictions registered overall. In the years before 2006, conviction rates were never even compiled, the Bihar Police said.

“People live in relative peace these days,” said Abhay Anand, the director general of the police in Bihar, who developed Bihar’s new police strategy at the behest of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Courtesy of Raksha Kumar Abhay Anand, director general of Bihar Police, at his office in Patna on March 21.

When Mr. Kumar became chief minister in 2005 “seeing barrels of guns sticking out of car windows was a common sight,” Mr. Anand said. The Bihar police, with a skeleton staff of largely unmotivated and poorly trained officers, lacked the ability to address these challenges, he said.

As their first move, Mr. Anand and his colleagues decided to invoke the Indian Arms Act to go after people who were possessing firearms illegally. These gun owners were considered more likely to be involved in other serious crimes, and they were easy to convict, he explained. “Under the Arms Act the policemen are the witnesses, so it is easier to get convictions without the fear of the witnesses turning hostile,” said Mr. Anand. More than 10,000 people, including those with political and family connections who thought they were untouchable, have been convicted under the act since 2006, he said.

“Nobody had heard of convictions here before,” Mr. Anand said. “We would file a charge sheet and there would be bail after that,” he said.

After the Arms Act was invoked, criminals and the politically influential took notice.

“For the first time they realized that they could also be behind bars,” Mr. Sankaran said.

Then, the police started pushing for “speedy trials,” aimed at getting criminal cases through the courts in a matter of months, rather than the years or even decades they took before. To do this, the police got more involved in the criminal proceedings of a case. In the past they often merely filed a charge sheet, but now they were actively helping prosecutors bring witnesses to the stand, pushing the prosecutors to take cases forward and following the trials closely.

“The police are not required to do that,” Mr. Anand said “But, if we didn’t do that the cases would fall apart and the police would be held responsible for the consequences. I cannot infringe the trial, but I can act as a catalyst and speed it up,” he added.

Officers who have worked for Mr. Anand said that while promotions were political in the past, he brought in a merit-based system, and good officers who performed quickly moved up the ranks.

As the police got more involved in trials, they realized there was another problem: most of their cases were falling apart because they relied heavily on unreliable witnesses. While some witnesses turned hostile under pressure, others simply didn’t remember the facts of their case well enough.

So the police turned to more scientific investigations. Forensic labs might be common to many parts of the world and many major cities in India, but in Bihar they were practically nonexistent until 2007. The three labs in the state were “defunct,” Mr. Sankaran said, and even some basic, useful tools like voice spectrographs, DNA testing, and firearms “fingerprinting,” which matches bullets to weapons, were absent.

Courtesy of Raksha Kumar A manual firearm fingerprinting device, left, and a modern digital version of the device on the right.

Babu Ram, 31, the new police superintendent in the Shiekhpura District of south Bihar, solved a high profile double murder last month with the help of the state’s newly modernized forensics team.

“We were all so motivated by the course the investigation took,” he said. “Earlier we closed several cases due to lack of evidence and the right means to authenticate that evidence,” he said.

His team used blood samples from the crime scene, and matched them to the accused’s blood group. Previously, his investigations team had no idea such a thing was possible, he said. “They were elated!”

Bihar’s high crime rates were often held responsible for the state’s poor economic performance in the past, and particularly for the lack of a robust private sector, thanks to low external investment levels and human and financial capital flight.

“Today, the situation seems to be changing,” said Ram Srivastava, a resident of the state’s capital city of Patna for 50 years.

“We saw clothing brands and restaurant chains only when we went to Delhi or Bombay earlier,” he said. “Today, there is a huge mall with world’s leading brands right in front of my house!” he added.

And citizens of the state say they feel much safer.

“Earlier, I never let my daughters go out after dark,” said Meenakshi Sinha, a resident of Patna for 38 years. “Today, my daughter returns from her tuition at 8 p.m. and I am not tense,” she said.

The Bihar model of reducing crime is now gaining followers, and the Ministry of Home Affairs has pledged to provide support to other states who hope to emulate it.

“Each state has different requirements to implement this model,” said Mr. Azad. While some states might need more ammunition, others want forensic experts, he said. “The Ministry of Home Affairs will support director generals of respective states if they approach the Ministry with their requirements,” he said.

Residents who had left Bihar earlier, looking for opportunity elsewhere, are even returning home. Poornima Chandra, 30, a marketing executive, recently returned to her home city, Patna, after 10 years of living in Delhi.

“The only thing lacking in this place was law and order,” she said. “Now that the problem is being taken care of, I want to settle here.”