The Bihar Police is the

law enforcement agency A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for law enforcement within a specific jurisdiction through the employment and deployment of law enforcement officers and their resources. The most common type of law enforcement ...

for the state of

Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, with its headquarters in

Patna Patna (; , ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paṭanā''), historically known as Pataliputra, Pāṭaliputra, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, ...

. As per official figures, Bihar Police has a sanctioned strength of 2,29,000 personnel, and as of 2024, it employs 1,10,000 personnel. The present DGP of Bihar Police is Vinay Kumar, an IPS officer of 1991 batch.

History

There is historical evidence of the adoption of intensive policing practices in the Magadh empire more than 2,000 years ago, where the head of police was known as Dandapala. His main role was to maintain law and order in the society while implementing harsh injunctions of ''

Arthashastra ''Kautilya's Arthashastra'' (, ; ) is an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, politics, economic policy and military strategy. The text is likely the work of several authors over centuries, starting as a compilation of ''Arthashas ...

'' to collect taxes and suppress rebellions. Modern policing in Bihar started in 1862 under the provisions of the '' Police Act, 1861''. After Bihar was carved out as an independent province in 1912 from Bengal, the basic structure of police was created as it exists today. After its major reorganization several pre-eminent police officers adorned pre-independent Bihar Police Force. These included Mr. Walter Swain of Swain Beat system fame, Shri AK Sinha, the first Indian to become an IGP of any province, Shri BN Mullick, the second director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Khan Bahadur Azizul Haque, credited with the primary development of the famous ‘ 1024 pigeon holes’ cabinet system eventually named after his supervisor, Sir Edward Richard Henry. Post independence, Bihar Police led innovative policing measures, such as the creation of a Police Welfare fund, Police Hospitals and Police Information Room (PIR) in 1952. Bihar Policemen's Association, which looks after the interests of policemen, was one of the first police welfare associations in all of India in 1967. A Police Commission was also set up in 1958, whose mandate was to bring the police closer to the people. Patna Police got its new headquarter Sardar Patel Bhavan, Bailey Road in 2018. The seven storied building with a helipad at the top is spread over almost 53,000 sqft area. Prior to this, police headquarter of Bihar Police was located at the old secretariat building since 1917.

Organizational structure

Nitish Kumar and Samrat Chaudhary distributing appointment letters to 1239 new police sub inspectors

Bihar Police comes under the direct control of the Department of Home Affairs,

Government of Bihar Bihar Government is the State governments of India, state government of the States and territories of India, Indian state of Bihar and its nine Divisions of Bihar, divisions which consist of Districts of Bihar, districts. It consists of an execut ...

. It has six divisions under the organizational structure, namely, Human Resource Development and Training Division (TRG), Law & Order Division (L & O), Establishment and Legal Division, Personnel and Welfare Division, Headquarter (DGP Office) and Budget Division (HQRT), and Modernization, Crime Records and Provision Division (SCRB &Mod). These are headed by four Additional Director General (ADGP), where ADGP (HQRT) has an additional charge of Welfare division, and ADGP (L & O) with that of Establishment and Legal Division. The Training division is headed by DGP (Training), while the latter five are headed by Director General (DGP). For geographic workload distribution, the state is divided into 12 ranges, each range consisting of 2 to 5 districts. The central range (Patna), Magadh range (Gaya), Tirhut range (Muzaffarpur), Mithila range (Darbhanga) and Purnia range are headed by IG rank officers, while other seven ranges are headed by DIG rank officers. Each district is commanded by a Superintendent of Police (SP), where as Patna is under a Senior Superintendent of Police. Earlier, the state also had a zonal division into four police zones. Introduced in 1982, each zone consisted of two to four ranges, and was headed by an IG level officer. This system was abolished in 2019, and only rail police zone continues to exist.

List of ranges

List of 12 Police Ranges and Police Districts in Bihar is as follows:

Hierarchy

Officers * Director General of Police (DGP) * Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) * Inspector General of Police (IGP) * Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) * Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) *

Superintendent of Police Superintendent (Supt) is a rank in the British police and in most English-speaking Commonwealth nations. In many Commonwealth countries, the full version is superintendent of police (SP). The rank is also used in most British Overseas Territori ...

(SP) * Additional Superintendent of Police (Addl.SP) * Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) or Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sub-ordinates * Inspector of Police or SHO * Sub-Inspector of Police (SI) * Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police (ASI) * Head Constable / Havildar * Senior Constable / Police Naik * Constable

Notable initiatives

Ladli Cops

An initiative in

Community Policing Community policing is a philosophy and organizational strategy whereby law enforcement cooperates with community groups and citizens in producing safety and security. The theory underlying community policing is that it makes citizens more likely t ...

for the safety of Women. The CID Branch of Bihar Police under the Leadership of Alok Raj (IPS) ADG in association with Mr. Roushan Kumar and Dr. Suman Lal founders Ladli Foundation came up with the concept of having Women Community Police to provide a safe and secure atmosphere to the inhabitants. Also to make women become familiar with Police and deeply understand the police system to invoke their taboo to interact with police station/ policemen. For this initiative, volunteer from girls studying in different colleges of Patna were identified and trained. Each of these girls were provided with ID Cards authorised by

Police and are called Ladli Cops.

Controversies and criticism

The Bihar Police has an extensive history of brutality, corruption, incompetence, caste discrimination as well as serving the political elite. The force has been known to be extremely incompetent when compared to other state police forces, which are slightly better. The Bihar Police was notoriously involved in the 1980 Bhagalpur blindings, where acid was poured into the eyes of 31 individuals, either convicted or undertrial. The incident was widely discussed, debated and acutely criticised by several human rights organisations. Given the extreme misconduct, the Supreme Court of India ordered compensation to the victims for violation of basic human rights. During the tenure of

Lalu Prasad Yadav Lalu Prasad (born 11 June 1948) is an Indian politician who served as the chief minister of Bihar from 1990 to 1997 with a brief interruption in 1995 and as the union minister for Railways from 2004 to 2009. He is the founder and president o ...

as Chief Minister, he interfered in policing of entire state to prevent any cases against the political leaders as well as party workers. Yadav was also responsible for preventing police reforms. Furthermore, during Yadav's tenure as Chief Minister, Bihar's law and order was at lowest, kidnapping was on rise and private armies mushroomed. He was also criticized by opposition in the Shilpi-Gautam Murder case and the death of his daughter Ragini Yadav's friend, Abhishek Mishra, in mysterious circumstances - both cases were heavily covered up by Bihar Police on Yadav's orders, the former of which prompted an investigation from the CBI. Yadav attempted to also influence the Fodder Scam investigations, which was subsequently later taken over by the CBI and led to his conviction.

Equipment

All the equipment of the Bihar Police are manufactured indigenously by the

Indian Ordnance Factories The Directorate of Ordnance (Coordination & Services) (abbreviated: DOO(C&S)) is an authority under the Department of Defence Production (DDP) of Ministry of Defence (MoD), Government of India. Its primary work is to management, give instructio ...

controlled by the

Ordnance Factories Board The Directorate of Ordnance (Coordination & Services) (abbreviated: DOO(C&S)) is an authority under the Department of Defence Production (DDP) of Ministry of Defence (MoD), Government of India. Its primary work is to management, give instructi ...

, Ministry of Defence, Government of India.