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LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Police is getting active on social media and is truly emerging as a key component of modern policing. The State police has been asked to increase its presence and activity on social media in a bid to directly connect with common people. UP is India’s most populous State with over 200 million inhabitants and police is overburdened with the task of monitoring activities and tracking criminals. UP Director General of Police Javeed Ahmed has in a circular to senior officers in the state has instructed them to officially take to Twitter as an effective redressal mechanism of public grievances. All top officers of the rank of Superintendent of Police, Senior Superintendent of Police, Deputy Inspector General and Inspector General, to maintain a Twitter account, the instruction says. The officers must maintain a log of the activity in their area on their Twitter handles. The State police would also be serviced with a permanent social media cell, where officials would work in two shifts from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. The DGP said also instructed his senior officers to configure their Twitter accounts on their CUG (official) phone numbers so that they can ensure necessary and swift action to public complaints. All officers and officials of the police department will soon also receive a training in the use of Twitter at the DGP’s headquarters in Lucknow. The DGP after reviewing all Twitter handles of UP police said, “Social media is an empowered medium of directly communicating with the people and it has become necessary for police to adopt it”. Apart from the directives to the officers, Mr. Ahmed has also asked his forces to maintain Twitter accounts at every district level — these accounts would be directly named after the district, for instance, Varanasi police. Profile pictures and bio data should be customized for maintain uniformity. Senior officers would also be required to reveal their rank and location as identifying markers on Twitter. The UP police has been appreciated for its alertness and quick response on its Twitter handle. The handle has more than 40,000 followers. It’s counterpart in Delhi has over 60,000.]]>
