Balasore: It was informed at a three-day police officers' conference on "acquittal of cases in courts and its remedies" that the conviction rate in the state ranged between 8 to 10 per cent due to several factors like witnesses turning hostile and inadequate manpower.

Nearly 70 officers of Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Bhadrak districts under the Eastern range, police training institutions, and lawyers attended the conference in Balasore.

Participants at the conference urged the police officers to investigate the cases using scientific tools and submit the charge-sheets for trial in time.

Eastern Range inspector general of police Binaytosh Mishra told the police officials to plug the loopholes during the process of investigations. "In criminal cases, which are tried in the sessions courts, the achievement of police officers is satisfactory. However, in cases pertaining to atrocity and civil nature cases, the acquittal rate is very high as witnesses, sometimes even the complainants turn hostile in later stages of trial. Often, the parties compromise resulting in low conviction rate," said Mishra.

He said: "In cases of dowry torture which excluded cases if deaths, the litigant families mostly end up their disputes with compromises. Similarly, in cases related to caste remarks and atrocity cases, the parties compromise." He urged the investigating officials to take care of all such aspects during investigations, including recording of statements, DNA tests and timely filing of charge-sheets.

Mishra also said out that manpower constraint was another bottleneck in the investigation. "Nearly 40 per cent post of the officers in the rank of sub inspector are lying vacant and the efforts are on fill up the vacancies," he said.

A senior police officer, on condition of anonymity, said that apart from manpower constraint, the state lacked expert wings to investigate crimes of different nature. "Besides general police, the state has a crime branch, an economic offence and a cyber crime wing. But, hardly anything is achieved by these bodies. The state police don't have a database of criminal incidents, including by professional and organised ones. There is lack of trained officials to deal with cyber -related offences," he said.

Bikers killed

Two bikers were killed in as many road accidents in Puri and Nabrangpur districts after being hit by unknown vehicles on Sunday.

Motorcyclist Saroj Sethy died at Baidash Chowk in Penthakata marine police station are near Puri on the spot of the accident, while Sujit Padhi was killed when an unknown vehicle knocked down his motorbike.