Bug Sweeping Services in Bihar

Bihar is policed differently from most of the states around it, and the difference is not cosmetic: it changes who you escalate to and what you can do without walking into a police station. The sweep itself is unchanged wherever we work, combining radio-frequency analysis, a non-linear junction detector that finds electronics left switched off, optical and thermal checks and a physical inspection. What this page sets out is the part that decides what happens next.

There is no police commissionerate anywhere in Bihar

Every district in Bihar, Patna included, is headed by a superintendent or senior superintendent of police working under the district magistrate's general direction and control. This is not an accident of appointments: the Bihar Police Act 2007 contains no definition of a Commissioner of Police, no commissionerate chapter and no power to declare one. It says the opposite, vesting the police administration of a district in the superintendent under the district magistrate. A Patna commissionerate has been talked about but nothing has been approved.

The practical consequence is worth understanding. In a commissionerate state the police chain is self-contained and the district magistrate sits outside it. In Bihar the district magistrate is inside the chain, which makes that office a real escalation route in a way it is not in Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu. If a complaint stalls at the station and then at the superintendent, the district magistrate is not a detour.

The state has thirty eight districts, grouped into twelve police ranges. The last new district, Arwal, was created in August 2001 out of Jehanabad, and none has been created since. For policing purposes the count is different from the revenue count in a way that matters when you are working out where to report: Bagaha and Naugachhia are police districts of their own on top of the thirty eight, and four railway police districts sit alongside them at Patna, Muzaffarpur, Katihar and Jamalpur.

Cyber coverage is better than the state's reputation suggests. There is a cyber police station in every police district, opened across the state in June 2023, and the state nodal body is the Economic Offences Unit at police headquarters in Patna rather than a separate cyber wing. If a complaint needs to go above your district, the Economic Offences Unit is where it goes.

Bihar has no e-FIR at all, whatever the website suggests

This is the single most important thing on this page. Bihar offers an e-complaint, not an e-FIR. The citizen services portal lists an e-complaint, a facility to view an FIR already registered, and an online request through the emergency response system. None of those registers an FIR. Some of the portal's own headings use the phrase file FIR online, which is loose wording with no service behind it, and you should expect someone to quote it at you. Plan on reaching a police station in person.

That makes the documentation from a sweep more useful here than in states with a working online route, because what you carry into the station is what the complaint rests on. We record what was found and where it was found before anything is moved.

On helplines, Bihar Police publishes 112 for police emergencies through the integrated response system, 1930 for cyber crime, 181 as the women's helpline, 1098 for children, 15545 for prohibition matters, which is specific to this state, and a dedicated CCTV help desk line. Two corrections are worth carrying, because both send people to the wrong place. The 1090 number that a great deal of syndicated advice gives to Bihar readers belongs to Uttar Pradesh and is not the line here. And Bihar Police's own site is internally inconsistent about the women's number, listing 181 on its emergency contacts page while a quick help widget on the same site shows 1091, so if one does not connect, try the other.

The hostel circular is real, and the High Court has said it has no teeth

In February 2026 Bihar Police headquarters issued a circular covering girls' hostels and lodges. It is more wide-ranging than most summaries suggest: registration, police verification of staff, a female warden on duty at all times, cameras at entrances, corridors and dining areas with thirty days of retention, a visitor register with controls on male access, biometric attendance for residents and staff, lighting and sanitation standards, and display of emergency numbers including 112, with checks by the state's women's safety units.

What it does not have is a penalty. In May 2026 the Patna High Court held that the circular provides no consequence for non-compliance, warned that it risked becoming a paper advisory, directed the state to amend it to add fines, penalties or closure, and ordered monthly compliance reports from district superintendents. So the requirements are real and worth quoting to a hostel, but nothing currently happens to an operator who ignores them. Ask, and treat the answer as information rather than assurance.

For hotels and lodges the position is simpler and less comforting. No Bihar statute requires cameras in hotel or lodge rooms or common areas. The Bihar Municipal Act licenses lodging houses as a trade licence with no camera, register or identity duty attached, and the Bihar Police Act does not reach hotels at all. Where a camera requirement exists it comes from a district police standing order, and those cover entrances, reception, corridors and parking. None of them covers the inside of a guest room, which is the space you are actually asking about.

As of September 2026 neither Bihar Police nor the state government has published any advisory specifically about hidden or spy cameras in hotel rooms, trial rooms, washrooms or hostels. That is a genuine gap rather than something we failed to find.

Cities in Bihar covered in detail

These have a page of their own, with the local jurisdiction detail and the areas covered.

Districts and towns across Bihar

Sweeps are arranged across the state, not only in the cities listed above. If your town is not named here it does not mean we cannot reach it, so please ask.

Questions about Bihar