Saturday, May 4

Hired Killer, Smuggler, Pimp… Among Professions Listed In Uttar Pradesh’s Police App UPCOP

Edited by Fazal Rahman Chembulangad

Attracting the public attention, the recently outed tenant verification section of the Uttar Pradesh police mobile app Uttar Pradesh Police Technical Services (UPCOP) has listed odd professions. Leaving the people in amazement, the tenant verification section of the app included professions such as beggar, drug trafficker, hired killer, vagabond, gambler, bootlegger etc.

Introduced by the Uttar Pradesh government, the UPCOP app was launched to facilitate easy online service for police help. The app assists users to file complaints, FIRs and cyber crimes. The app has been available in Google Play. 

However, with the netizens taking note of the bizarre list of professions included in the UPCOP with amusing discussions on social media, the police have learnt the anomaly. The screenshots of the rather strange professions were circulated online, with many sarcastically commenting on the missing similar professions.

The Uttar Pradesh police took note of the issue. It appeared that the officials had no answer on how the flow happened, according to a report by Times of India. It is believed that the anomaly happened due to how the data was fed

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the police wrote, “Thank you for pointing it out. The dropdown is based on master data populated by the NCRB. Other states have also flagged this issue with the concerned agencies. We are taking it up with them to rectify this anomaly.”

The UPCOP can also be used to generate character certificates for individuals.

“UPCOP is monitored by the technical services department, which is headed by an ADG rank officer. NCRB data has not changed. Other states had flagged a similar issue in the past. Similarly, we will also seek necessary changes and rectify the issue,” the media house quoted an official. 

The feature of tenant verification in the UP police app is used by landlords while they rent out properties. The source for preparing the database for them is the NCRB data. It was not known how the anomaly happened in the NCRB.