Police Constable in Gujarat who develops software to fight crime

He is a constable and has a diploma in Diesel Engine mechanics – but he has created at least a dozen software products that have helped solve around 200 crimes.  Dilip Thakor is quite a phenomenon!

A woman recently walked into the Ahmedabad police’s crime branch headquarters to complain about some plainclothes cops who were blackmailing her after catching her in a compromising position with her boyfriend. She had already given them gold ornaments worth Rs 50,000. Officials smelt a rat and zeroed in on fraudsters known to pose as policemen in Odhav, the area where the woman lived. The men were caught and the ornaments returned.

The speedy detection was possible because of software developed by a police constable who has not even graduated and holds a diploma in – of all things – diesel engine mechanics. Dilip Thakor, 37, has developed ‘Pinak’ – a search engine tailor-made to combat crime. All the cops did was type in ‘Odhav’ and ‘fake police’. Pinak immediately threw up a long list of suspects and the woman easily picked out the culprits. (link)

Only 4-5 products are in public domain, the rest are only available to the police and used to get the hardened criminals.

It is great that Thakor is doing all this gratis, but at some point he should be rewarded for all this as well.  Only if there is a mechanism to reward such talent, will we be able to see more people displaying such creative as a regular practice.  We need to cultivate Dilip Thakors, not just be happy if one serendipitously falls into our lap!

Some of Dilip Thakor’s software products are:

Pinak: Collation of details about history-sheeters — helps in crime detection and prevention
Eklavya: Vehicle registration and details about owners
Amarbail: Details about court cases and legal status of criminals active in Gujarat
Saarthi: Licence numbers of all vehicle owners with criminal records, if any