Police stations in J&Kto have separate investigation wings

The Jammu and Kashmir government is planning to set up separate investigation wings in police stations with officers engaged solely for probing various cases.
"The Jammu and Kashmir government mulls to fine-tune the criminal justice system in the state by deputing dedicated officers for investigation of the cases," State Minister for Law and Justice Abdul Haq said.
The minister directed the Director General of Police to identify police stations having high number of pending criminal cases so as to depute qualified and professional investigation officers (IOs) to deal exclusively with such cases.
During a review meeting, the minister said investigation into cases gets affected as investigation officers are simultaneously engaged in law and order duties.

The minister said the government is planning to have a separate investigation wing in police stations and professional investigators will be deputed so that no loophole is left in the investigation.
Calling for coordination between the investigating agencies, forensic experts, medical experts and prosecutors, Haq said it can lead to foolproof mechanism for establishing the case during criminal trial.

It was found that the conviction rate is quite low in the country and the accused are either discharged at the stage of framing of charge or acquitted finally.
It was observed that delay in trial also amounts to denial of justice and long time taken for finalisation of the criminal trial also leads to discontentment among the people.

The minister said the aim of the government is to improve the justice delivery system in the state.
He also called for examination of select disposed cases to identify the loopholes in investigation and prosecution.
He directed the department of Law and Prosecution to take a random sample of 100 cases that have been disposed and examine them to identify the loopholes so that the department is able to act accordingly in future to avoid frequent acquittals.
He said the government will also fix responsibilities and punish the officers who will be found responsible for leaving loopholes in the investigation.