Policemen in the state capital would soon have their roles defined — either to deal with law and order or to carry out investigation.

A meeting was held at the state police headquarters on Thursday under the chair-manship of director-general of police (DGP) Abhayanand to work out a strategy for division of work at the police station level.

The move assumes significance in the wake of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s contention that there should be two wings at each police station — one entrusted with the task of investigation into criminal incidents and another to maintain law and order.

The meeting was attended by inspector-general (Patna zone) Bhrigu Srinivasan, deputy inspector-general (central range) Sunil Kumar, Patna senior superintendent of police Amrit Raj and the city SP and DSPs. The meeting suggested that the two wings would work under the supervision of a station house officer (SHO). According to the plans chalked out during the meeting, the members of the team entrusted with the task of maintaining law and order should first reach the place of an occurrence and do ground work such as demarcation of the spot, prevent tampering with evidence and take photographs. They would be equipped with video camera, fingerprint kits and other equipment.

Once the task of the law and order team is done, the special investigation team would visit the spot, collect evidence and start its probe into the incident. Members of the probe team will be equipped with basic investigation kits.

“Usually it is found that law and order problems follow soon after a crime takes place,” said a police officer present at the meeting. “Though the role of the two wings would be different in nature, they would assist each other,” he added.

The meeting also discussed the strength of the force at a particular police station for the smooth functioning of the two wings. Initially, only incidents of a “heinous crime” and cases such as cyber crime or electronic fraud, counterfeit notes and human trafficking would be taken up by the special investigation team.

“To start with, we have decided to form separate wings for investigation and law and order problem in the urban areas of Patna. The module will be implemented in other districts later,” Abhayanand said. He added the objective was to improve the quality of investigation.