MUMBAI: To curb the rise of conmen extorting innocent people by posing as policemen, the Mumbai police force has decided to introduce new metallic identity cards with a photo of the policeman embossed onto them. The new ID cards will have a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip that allows short-range wireless communication with other policemen, and a Quick Response (QR) code that will enable citizens to verify if the policeman is genuine or not.
Recently, the police have been grappling with cases of frauds posing as policemen and either extorting money from people or defrauding senior citizens under several pretexts. “We have in the past appealed to the city residents to dial the police control room or reach out to the nearest police station and verify the identity of the policemen, if they have any doubt about the person stopping them,” said a police officer.
Taking serious note of the incidents, police commissioner Deven Bharti discussed the issue with the top brass, including joint commissioner of police, S Jayakumar and additional commissioner of police (crime branch), Shailesh Balkawade, and decided to come up with new, chip-enabled metallic identity cards for all 51,000 policemen, who are part of the city police force. A police officer added that they have selected a vendor and placed an order for 51,000 identity cards and hope to replace all the identity cards of the policemen in the next two months.
“This time we will make metal identity cards which will have a NFC chip which will enable the policemen to access restricted areas of important police establishments. It will have the photo of the policeman embossed on it which will be very difficult to copy. Further, the new identity cards will have a QR code through which a person can check the details of the policemen,” said Jayakumar, joint commissioner of police (administration).
According to the police, once a person scans the QR code he will be taken to the Mumbai police’s website where if the identity card is original all details of the policeman, like his joining date, his posting and other details will appear.
This move comes after several businessmen and senior citizens have been cheated by people posing as policemen. The police noted that the frauds had fake police identity cards in these extortion cases. Even cyber frauds have started cheating senior citizens claiming they are police officers or other law enforcement personnel and that they are investigating a case wherein the victim’s documents or credentials are being used. People are being defrauded by frauds coercing them to transfer funds aiming to verify their bank details.
“They (frauds) even send copies of the identity cards on WhatsApp to force the victims and convince them that they are really dealing with the police or other law enforcement officers,” said a police officer. “Such instances have resulted in loss of crores of rupees. After the new cards are issued, the frauds will not be able to use fake identity cards and pose as Mumbai policemen,” said the police officer.