Cracking 20,000 cases in six months is no easy task. But police think it's possible.
The police headquarters has decided to finally shake all stations under its jurisdiction out of their slumber by setting the deadline to solve at least half of the huge number of pending cases.
Over the past 10 years, 40,000 cases have become pending with the Patna police.
Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vikas Vaibhav said on Thursday: "The 27 police stations under Patna Sadar area have a combined total of 26,347 pending cases. Of them, 8,711 cases are more than a decade old. The remaining 17,636 were lodged between 2006 and September 2015. The figures are alarming. It makes no sense that so many old cases are yet to be solved. All police stations have been given April 2016 deadline to drastically cut down on pending cases by solving them or submitting the chargesheet."
Available figures on Kotwali police station show 5,520 pending cases, the FIRs of which were lodged before 2005, and 1,688 in the past decade. The corresponding figures for Pirbahore police station are 1,106 and 1,310, while for Buddha Colony police station, the figures are 608 and 587.
The officer attributed the pendency of cases to non-performance.
"In many cases, investigation is complete but the police are yet to file chargesheets. After the elections, the police would identify those officers who didn't do their duty properly. Pinpointing officers responsible for cases dating back to 2004 or before is tough but the police would do it," said the SSP.
The focus over the next six months would be to evenly distribute fresh cases among investigating officers apart from reviewing the pending ones.
"The aim would to halve the number of pending cases in six months. The 67 police stations in Patna district have around 700 investigating officers. The goal would be to ensure that each investigating officer gets more than five cases to investigate at a time. One can well understand the mental state of a person whose bike or car was stolen back in 2005 and the related case is still under investigation," said the officer.
