SMCRC: How a Police Lab in Meerut is Still Teaching the World About Smart Policing

Posted by Prof. Kapil Gautam, Department of Information Technology

15 January 2019

As someone who has been teaching Information Technology for over fifteen years in engineering colleges, I’ve always believed that the best tech ideas are the ones that solve real, messy problems on the ground. That’s why the story of Uttar Pradesh Police’s Social Media Command & Research Centre (SMCRC) in Meerut in 2015 intrigued me initially and I keep referring to it in my lectures since I came to know about it in late 2015. What made it even more special was that this impressive innovation was happening right next door in Meerut — barely a couple of hours from Delhi. As a professor teaching in the capital, it felt particularly exciting to witness such a practical and impactful use of social media analytics emerging so close by. Even in early 2019, it remains one of the most practical and inspiring examples of how technology can help maintain peace in a sensitive region.

The whole thing started with then-DIG Ramit Sharma, who was heading the Meerut Range back in 2014-15. He had seen how fake news and morphed videos had played a major role in various riots world over, especially in India. After that, he became convinced that the police couldn’t keep reacting after trouble had already begun. So, in early 2015, he proposed setting up a dedicated social media monitoring lab. By February-March 2015, newspapers were reporting that Meerut would get Uttar Pradesh’s first such facility. It was also a beautiful example of academia and practitioner collaboration to solve real world complex problems – a fine example to be taught in college lectures.

The lab, which was called SMCRC, by Ramit Sharma, IPS, ran on custom tools which were Advanced Applications for Social Media Analytics. It went into trial mode sometime in early-2015 and was officially launched in August 2015. A small team of five— just four constables and one sub-inspector, trained by the academia — started working in eight-hour shifts from the DIG’s office. Their job was to keep an eye on trends, hashtags, and viral posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Google Plus and Instagram across six districts of Meerut Range: Meerut, Ghaziabad, Noida (Gautam Budh Nagar), Hapur, Bulandshahr, and Baghpat.

What I liked most was the practical approach they took. They weren’t interested in spying on anyone’s private accounts. Instead, they focused on public conversations and sudden spikes in rumours that could disturb law and order. If something dangerous started gaining traction — like that false claim about a minority youth murdering a priest that had already crossed 400 retweets — the team would quickly verify the facts and tip off the district police to counter it before things got out of hand. And interestingly, they managed all this without asking for any special new budget. They simply used whatever IT funds were already allocated to the Meerut range.

Just a week after the formal launch, on 29 August 2015, the DIG’s office took another smart step. They created their official Twitter handle @digmeerut. The very first tweet was a warm Raksha Bandhan message wishing everyone well and reminding people that respecting sisters is the best way to build a safer society. Ramit Sharma saw this as a natural extension of the lab — moving from just watching social media to actually engaging with the public and sharing verified information.

They didn’t stop at monitoring and tweeting. In Meerut, the police also started reaching out to influential people on social media (Social Media Influencers - SMIs) and turning them into Digital Volunteers. These were ordinary citizens (local SMIs) who could help spread correct information and push back against hate and rumours. Ramit Sharma, IPS, roped in SMIs when we were still trying to define the SMIs. The idea worked so well that on 8 January 2016, the DGP issued Circular No. 1 of 2016, asking all districts in Uttar Pradesh to start their own digital volunteer networks. It was a nice example of how police and citizens could actually work together for common good.

What really caught my attention as a professor was how quickly this local experiment got noticed internationally. In August 2016, more than a year after SMCRC started, London’s Metropolitan Police announced its own Online Hate Crime Hub — a team of five officers with a budget of £1.7 million. Then in April 2017, Mayor Sadiq Khan formally launched it, describing it as the first dedicated unit of its kind in the UK. This came almost two years after UP Police got it on ground. The similarities were hard to miss: monitoring hate speech on social media, supporting victims, tracing offenders, and working with community volunteers. It felt like the Met had looked at what was happening in Meerut and thought, “This makes sense.”

Now, sitting here in January 2019, I find it quite satisfying that SMCRC has been running successfully for more than three-and-a-half years, the statewide digital volunteers programme for nearly three years, and the London hub for almost twenty months. From a teaching point of view, this is a perfect real-life case study for my students — showing how a low-cost partnership between police and academia (with a bit of citizen help) can deliver results. It also opens up good classroom discussions about where to draw the line between effective monitoring and protecting individual privacy. It is also a great motivation to students when I emphasize how west adopts our indigenous innovations when we actually apply ourselves to real world problem solving.

Ramit Sharma’s work on this was later recognised with the Police Medal for Meritorious Service, which was well deserved. His vision showed that tech-driven policing doesn’t always need huge budgets or heavy-handed methods. Sometimes a thoughtful, practical approach works better.

As we move further into 2019, I hope more police forces in India and abroad take a closer look at the Meerut model. There is still scope to bring in newer platforms like WhatsApp and use more advanced tools for faster rumour detection, but the core idea — proactive, collaborative, and community-backed — already feels right.

For my engineering students who read this blog, here’s my simple message: the programs and algorithms you build in the lab today have the power to help keep society safer and calmer tomorrow. And for senior police officers and policymakers, the lesson from Meerut is clear — sometimes the smartest solutions come from combining technology with common sense and public trust.

I’ll keep sharing more such stories about how Indian IT minds are quietly changing the way governance and public safety work. Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments below.

Prof. Kapil Gautam Delhi-based IT professor & occasional blogger (All views are entirely my own)