Patna: Director-general of police (DGP) Krishna Swaroop Dwivedi has set a one-month deadline on police officials of Patna and Nalanda to improve their performance or face the heat.

Dwivedi's warning came during a meeting with senior police officials of Patna and Nalanda to assess the law and order situation on Tuesday.

Additional director-general, CID, Vinay Kumar, accompanied Dwivedi at the review meeting.

This is for the first time in recent times that any DGP has visited the office of the zonal IG to hold a review meeting on law and order. Dwivedi told the police officials that zonal IG Khan would review the instructions given at the meeting after a month.

"I will initiate strong disciplinary action against the officers found to be lax in implementing the instructions issued to the officers such as proper and scientific investigation, timely supervision and disposal of the cases. The IG will submit a report to the police headquarters after a month," he told the officers at the review meeting.

Dwivedi said the role of the sub-divisional officers was significant in the timely supervision and disposal of the cases (read filing of chargesheet). He expressed displeasure over piling of cases at the police stations in the two neighbouring districts.

The DGP was taken aback when he came to know about theft of around 300 motorbikes from areas falling under the jurisdiction of Kankerbagh police station in Patna in one year. "This is shocking. Theft of vehicles falls under the category of organised crime," he said.

Patna senior superintendent of police Manu Maharaaj, who was present at the meeting, was directed to look at the cases of organised crime on a priority basis. The amount of cases pending in Fatuha, Barh, Patna (town) and Patna (law and order) sub-divisions in Patna district was alarming.

The DGP stressed the need for dog squad in the investigation of important cases.

"You should ensure that the sniffer dogs visit the place of occurrence frequently," Dwivedi told the police officials present at the meeting, which began at 11am and concluded around 3.30pm.

He asked the deputy inspector-general (central range) Rajesh Kumar to conduct sub-division-wise review of the cases to accelerate the rate of disposal of the pending cases. The DGP expressed displeasure over poor rate of conviction in Patna.

IG, N.H. Khan, DIG (central range) Rajesh Kumar, Patna SSP, Manu Maharaaj, City SP (west) Ravinder Kumar, SP (rural) Anand Kumar, City SP (central) D. Amarkesh, SP (traffic) P.N. Mishra and Nalanda SP Sudhir Kumar Porika besides all SDPOs of Patna and Nalanda were present at the meeting.

Last month, the DGP had reviewed the law and order situation in the districts falling under Tirhut zone.