Police social media monitoring cells rise from 262 to 365 in four years

Over the past five years, police forces across States have dedicated significant resources to monitoring social media platforms, an analysis of police infrastructure data shows. The number of dedicated social media monitoring cells rose from 262 across 28 States and eight Union Territories as of January 1, 2020, to 365 as of January 1, 2024.

Most of such cells are operational in Bihar (52), Maharashtra (50), Punjab (48), West Bengal (38) and Assam (37).

In Manipur, where large-scale ethnic violence erupted on May 3, 2023, the number of police social media monitoring cells rose from 3 on January 1, 2020, to 16 on January 1, 2024. The expansion occurred despite the Internet being suspended in the State for about 140 days in 2023.

Assam increased the number of social media monitoring cells from 1 in 2022 to 37 in 2024. West Bengal expanded its network from 2 to 38 cells, while Punjab doubled its capacity, increasing the number from 24 to 48 between 2022 and 2024.

Earlier, social media monitoring cells were not counted separately or were part of the cybercrime police stations. They began to function as distinct units from 2021, according to Data on Police Organisations (DoPO) reports for the years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The annual DoPO reports are prepared by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), a police think tank under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

The cells started featuring in the reports since 2021, which includes data for the 2020.

Meanwhile, the number of cybercrime police stations increased from 376 as of January 1, 2020, to 624 as of January 1, 2024.

Police officials attribute the need for dedicated cells to track and pre-empt the evolving crime trends on social media platforms such as Facebook, X, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram.

The 2024 DoPO report said that the number of drones available with police forces in States and Union Territories stood at 1,147, up from 1,010 as of January 1, 2023.

The report also noted that 5,92,839 police posts were vacant across the country, against the total sanctioned strength of 27,55,274.

Of the total sanctioned strength of 27.55 lakh, the actual strength comprised 3,30,621 personnel belonging to Scheduled Castes, 2,31,928 to Scheduled Tribes and 6,37,774 to Other Backward Classes.