Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday stressed the need for police reforms and suggested that the force do away with the age-old third-degree torture and adopt more scientific and new methods of investigation to stay ahead of criminals.

Speaking at the 49th foundation day celebrations of the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), the home minister said: “This is not an era of third-degree (torture) and the police need to adopt scientific methods and (study) forensic evidence for investigation to nail criminals. Police must think four steps ahead of criminals and criminal-minded people.”

Advocating police reforms, Shah said the conviction ratio in criminal cases in the country was “very pitiful” and age-old policing techniques such as third-degree torture and phone tapping would no longer help curb crimes or secure convictions.

The home minister said forensic evidence was the need of the hour for police investigators to clinch convictions.

Shah drew a distinction between police reforms and reforms in policing, and urged the BPRD to take the lead in the latter.

Shah proposed a paradigm shift in the approach to policing and called for a countrywide consultative process to make changes to the IPC and the CrPC.

He announced that a police university and a forensic science university would be set up at the national level.