Abdul Majid Bhat and Aabid Ali Bhat are facing charges in the court of Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) GM Bhat in Kupwara. The charges against the duo are dealing in the supply of drugs, and they stand booked under the NDPS Act. On the order of the judge, they were fitted with GPS tracker anklets a couple of days ago and released on bail. The trackers are meant to keep a watch on their movements even as they are on bail and the trial continues.
The police team that got the GPS trackers fixed on the accused was led by DySP Ameen Bhat and SHO Kupwara Inspector Ishfaq. Incidentally, it was the first time that GPS anklet trackers have been put on any accused under the NDPS Act. Some months ago, the Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) started using this method of 365x24x7 surveillance of some accused in terror cases.
The accused were booked in case FIR No 283/2022 and have now been granted bail after a long time. However, the Kupwara judge who ordered the bail in the case said that the accused should be fitted with anklet GPS trackers. Of all the 20 districts in Jammu & Kashmir, remote Kupwara has thus become the first district to deploy such technology for surveillance of the accused.
Earlier in the year 2023, the device was used to track the terror accused under the UAPA Act after a special NIA court in Jammu passed an order directing the police to affix a GPS tracker anklet. A couple of senior police officers, when contacted, said that this was something that would help them determine the movement of the accused. Whether putting on GPS anklet trackers acts as a deterrent, or not, will be cleared only after some time, they said. Right now, harnessing this technology will sure give a free hand to some personnel involved in keeping surveillance and watching over suspects.
DGP R R Swain had taken charge as 17th Director General of Police in J&K on October 31, 2023, after the superannuation of Dilbagh Singh. In the first week of November , Swain first talked of putting GPS anklet trackers on people involved in crimes with the help of courts. He had then said that this was a method fairly widespread in western societies, and the time was ripe for putting it in use here too. Swain says that the GPS tracker can aid the police, and he is sanguine that it can help in bringing down the smuggling of narcotics.
The GPS tracker device can help decongest the jails by enlarging the accused on bail, or parole. It is used in the UK, South Africa, the US, and New Zealand.
Before taking over as DGP, Swain had a long stint as the head of the CID wing of the Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) from June 2020 to October 2023. It was during that period that his idea about harnessing technology to keep a watch on terror suspects and criminals crystallised. Swain is also credited with the creation of the State Investigation Agency (SIA) along the lines of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
It bears mention here that NIA was established on the last day of 2008, and its founder head was Radha Vindo Raju, an IPS officer of the J&K Cadre. He had picked up a number of his trusted men from the cadre to which he belonged, and Swain was on the initial team. During his tenure as head of the SIA, Swain worked on the idea of putting GPS trackers on terror suspects.
