Bug Sweeping Services in Maharashtra

Maharashtra holds more of India's corporate decision-making than any other state, and with it the meetings that people most want to overhear. The sweep we run does not change from Mumbai to Nagpur: radio-frequency analysis for anything transmitting, a non-linear junction detector for electronics left switched off, optical and thermal checks, and a physical inspection of the places a device is actually concealed. What changes is the layer around it, and in this state the single most useful thing to know before something happens is which police force covers the address you are standing in.

Eleven commissionerate cities, and seven of them have a rural force as well

Maharashtra Police list eleven city commissionerates: Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Mira-Bhayandar and Vasai-Virar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nagpur, Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Amravati and Solapur. Two cautions come with that list. The department's own about page still says ten, so the count is inconsistent on its own website. And Kolhapur and Nanded are widely listed as commissionerates online but appear in the official unit list as district police, so treat those claims with suspicion.

The part that decides where you go is the rural split. Seven of those eleven cities have a separate rural police district with its own superintendent: Thane, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Amravati and Solapur. If you are just outside one of those city limits, the rural force is a different office with a different head. The other four work differently. Mumbai City has no rural counterpart at all. Navi Mumbai and Pimpri-Chinchwad have no rural unit of their own, so the land around them belongs to Thane Rural and Pune Rural respectively. Mira-Bhayandar and Vasai-Virar was carved out of Thane Rural and Palghar, so those are its neighbours.

That is the opposite of what a reader might assume from the map. Two addresses fifteen minutes apart on the same road can sit with different superintendents, and a factory or farmhouse on the edge of Pune or Nashik very often is not the city police at all.

Three of the state's districts were renamed recently, which matters if you are working from an older list: Aurangabad is now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad is Dharashiv, both since September 2023, and Ahmednagar became Ahilyanagar in October 2024.

On cyber matters the state runs Maharashtra Cyber from Mahape in Navi Mumbai rather than from Mumbai, with district cyber labs connected back to it. A government resolution dated 23 July 2026 formally designated that office the State Cyber Crime Coordination Centre. Sources disagree on how many cyber police stations exist and the authoritative listing could not be read, so we publish no number.

Which women's helpline you dial depends on where you are standing

Maharashtra Police publish the split on their own home page, and it catches out anyone working from national advice. The 103 women's safety line runs in the Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai police units only. Everywhere else in Maharashtra the number is 1091. If you are in Pune, Nashik, Nagpur or anywhere outside those three units, 103 is not your number.

There is a third number that is easy to confuse with both. The 181 line in Maharashtra is a women's helpline run by the women and child development department, not by the police. That is worth holding on to if you read advice written for another state, because 181 means something different in each: in Madhya Pradesh it is the Chief Minister's grievance line, and in Uttar Pradesh it is a women's welfare department service separate from the police.

For cyber matters the state publishes 1930 alongside 14407. The 14407 line belongs to Maharashtra Cyber and runs statewide, so despite how often it is quoted as a city facility it is not specific to Nagpur or anywhere else. Emergencies go to 112, which the state runs as a single point of contact with location capture, panic button and SMS routes as well as voice.

On what you can finish online, plan on attending a police station for anything cognizable. Voyeurism is cognizable. We were not able to re-read Mumbai Police's own statement of policy on this during the latest check because several of their pages were returning errors, so we describe the practical position rather than quoting a rule.

No statewide camera duty, and one district order worth quoting

Maharashtra has no statewide rule requiring cameras in hotels, lodges or paying guest accommodation. The Maharashtra Police Act pulls lodging houses into a licensing power by defining them as places of public entertainment, but that power contains no camera clause and no guest register clause. There is also no statewide regulation of paying guest accommodation or private hostels at all: licensing is municipal and differs from one corporation to the next.

The Mumbai order that circulates online is not current. It was a city prohibitory order made in January 2021 requiring cameras across twenty three categories of private establishment, and it ran for sixty days and expired in March 2021. Anyone presenting it as a standing Mumbai rule, or as a Maharashtra rule, is wrong on both counts.

One district order is worth knowing about because of what it excludes. In Raigad, the Collector was reported in 2026 to have required accommodation providers to keep guest identity records for two years and to run cameras at entry and exit points, reception, corridors and parking with thirty days of retention, while expressly stating that cameras must not be inside rooms or bathrooms. That carve-out is the line to quote at any operator who suggests a camera in a room could be legitimate. It is a district order reported in the press rather than state law, so treat it as local and current only while it runs.

Separately, and this one is central law rather than state law, the keeper of any hotel, guest house or hostel must report a foreign national's arrival and departure online. That duty applies across India, not only here.

We found no advisory from Maharashtra Police specifically about hidden or spy cameras. There is none to point you at in this state.

Cities in Maharashtra covered in detail

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

Districts and towns across Maharashtra

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 Maharashtra