Crime Branch

About Us

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            Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) is in-charge of Crime Prevention, Detection and Investigation within Mumbai City. Various branches operate within the crime branch under their supervision. DCPs are the heads of those branches.

 

History of C.I.D. : Criminal Investigation Department

If the Bombay Police has earned the sobriquet “Second to Scotland Yard”, it is because of the excellent investigations carried out by the Criminal Investigation Department.

Prior to 1884, there was no properly organized detective department. The government was not in favor of establishing a separate detective staff, as it feared that doing so would lead to inter-departmental jealousy and conflict. However, the police circumvented this obstacle by setting up a detective branch that was part of the regular ranks.

In 1890, permission was granted to change the name of the Detective Branch to the Criminal Investigation Department, although it remained a part of the police force.

The Tilak riots of 1908, which exposed the ineffectiveness of police intelligence gathering, changed the government’s stance. S. M. Edwardes subsequently set up the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.) on June 8, 1909. It replaced the old Detective Branch and functioned as an elite organization under the control of an officer of the Imperial Police.

He was given the rank of DCP — the first being F. A. M. H. Vincent — while the existing DCP continued to deal with the Divisional Police.

The four main areas the C.I.D. worked on were Political, Foreign, Crime, and Miscellaneous, each under an Inspector of Police. One of its primary tasks was to look into cases of a sensitive, political, or religious nature — a responsibility that continues even today.