1st dedicated centre for police evidence opened in Navi Mum
NAVI MUMBAI: The state’s first ever Evidence Management Centre (EMC), meant to store and protect the evidence collected by the police in various cases, was inaugurated in Navi Mumbai on Sunday. The EMC is a part of ‘Mission Conviction’, which Navi Mumbai police commissioner Milind Bharambe initiated after he took charge in December 2022. In the series of initiatives taken to support the mission, the EMC is the sixth one.
“This is the order in which all the systems will come together to make sure that when the case reaches court, everything is in place,” said Bharambe. “The first is the i-bike used for collecting evidence, followed by the Nelson System of investigation. Then come the Yatharth app used for recording panchnamas, the Evidence Dispatch Van (EDV) and the e-pairavi app used to keep tabs on court summons. The EMC is the last system, where all the evidence will be stored. It can be called a pilot project of the state, as it is the first ever initiative of its kind.”
Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who inaugurated the EMC, said most cases did not stand in court on account of minor issues that happened while collecting evidence. “The defence always finds small mistakes in the system of collecting evidence, due to which an accused is let off,” he said. “This will make sure that the evidence stays tamper-proof and is also collected in a scientific way.”
Rashmi Shukla, director-general of police (DGP) who was present for the inauguration, said the EMC was a good initiative. “Evidence plays a very crucial role in conviction,” she said. “We will definitely consider implementing a similar model in the rest of the state.”
Navi Mumbai will have three EMCS: a 5,000-sq-ft space in Panvel under the jurisdiction of Zone II, a 4,200-sq-ft one near the NRI coastal police station for Zone I, and a third exclusively for vehicles in a 50,000sq-ft open area at Taloja. “Earlier, the evidence collected and stored in the record rooms of police stations were in bad shape,” said Bharambe. “Now each police station will have a separate rack in the EMC room, and each piece of evidence will be stored with a QR code which can be used to check the chain of custody of the evidence, keeping the integrity of all the collected evidence intact.”