In a major step toward smart policing, the Maharashtra Police have begun using Crime-OS, an advanced AI tool designed to assist officers with investigations almost instantly. Developed under the MARVEL project (Maharashtra Research and Vigilance for Enhanced Law Enforcement) in collaboration with IIM Nagpur, Crime-OS functions like an intelligent co-pilot—automating tasks like drafting letters, scanning bank transactions, and identifying suspicious activity.
What once took hours of manual work is now done in seconds. “If a fraud FIR is uploaded, Crime-OS extracts key details, prepares a bank request letter, and later analyzes the bank’s response to highlight questionable transactions,” said ASP Deepak Agrawal. The Nagpur Rural Police, led by SP Dr Harssh Poddar, have already deployed the system, with trained officers at each police station to operate it.
But Crime-OS is just one part of the MARVEL initiative. The project includes a suite of AI tools:
- Facial Recognition: Matches faces in videos in real-time to identify suspects or missing persons.
- Object Detection: Flags over 600 items, including weapons, seen in video footage.
- OCR Tools: Automatically reads vehicle number plates and documents.
- Telecom Chatbot: Quickly analyzes call data, tower dumps, and internet usage records—tasks that would otherwise take hours.
Officials believe these innovations will significantly reduce paperwork and allow officers to focus more on on-ground policing. As ASP Agrawal put it, this marks the beginning of a new era in tech-driven law enforcement.