Patna, Feb. 25: The emergence of a new breed of criminals has compelled senior police officers to ponder over the pattern of the policing in the state. To keep pace with the disconcerting trend of crime the state police headquarters has sought suggestions from its senior police officers.

For the purpose, the state police headquarters has constituted a panel of senior IPS officers headed by additional director general (ADG), headquarters Raj Vardhan Sharma. The members have been asked to send their suggestions by March 15.

The members would study the changing pattern of crime in the past few years. “We are facing a new breed of criminals, who pose a serious challenge. In the era of science and technology, there is need to equip the police force with latest technology and train police personnel accordingly,” Sharma said.

Advocating the need of change in the existing pattern of policing, Sharma said the urban as well as rural areas have registered remarkable growth in the population, number of highways and state roads. The pattern of crimes has also undergone a sea change in the recent times.

Moreover, the pattern of policing in Naxalite-hit areas is quite different from that in the urban areas. Even teen-agers have stepped into the world of crime.

“There have been instances when persons, who have been arrested on the charges of serious offences, do not have criminal antecedents. Under such circumstances, the police face a lot of problems in detecting and solving the case,” the ADG said.

He also said: “What is shocking is that a number of the people arrested for their involvement in criminal activities are students. The new criminals are techno-savvy and also work on the cyberspace. A majority of them may not be aware of the consequences of the offences they have committed.”

Sharma stressed the need of community policing both in urban and rural areas. “We are also mulling over introducing beat policing in urban as well as rural areas. The creation of a task force at the district level is being considered by the top brass of the state police,” he added. Sharma had introduced beat policing in Patna when he was posted as the inspector-general, Patna zone, a few years ago.

“The beat policing was started in Patna on an experimental basis. The experiment was successful as the police officers used to get a lot of information from the people,” he said.

The panel included special secretary (home) Sunil Kumar, ADG (headquarters) Rajvardhan Sharma, ADG (rail) S.K. Bhardwaj, inspector general (operations) K.S. Dwivedi and deputy inspector generals Vineet Vinayak, Nayyar Hasnain Khan, Umesh Kumar, Amit Kumar and Patna senior superintendent of police Alok Kumar.