Offences like chain snatching, burglary, abduction and attention diversion are likely to become a thing of the past if one goes by the promises of new City Police Commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar.
Bangalore will soon become the third City in the country to have CCTV cameras for law and order policing. Currently, Mumbai has 200 CCTV cameras, while Delhi has 36 for law and order policing.
“These are routine crimes. However, they have become a nightmare for the City residents, especially women, elders and children, since they keep recurring. We have decided to put an end to such crimes by monitoring and increasing our response time,” Auradkar said.
He told Deccan Herald that a majority of those involved in petty crimes are at large, since the police have not been able to keep tabs on them.
“Shortage of staff has come as a blessing for them. Hence, we have decided to instal CCTV cameras at all strategic locations in the City. I have directed all seven deputy commissioners of police to submit detailed proposals on where CCTVs need to be installed. We will soon procure the cameras,” he said.
“There are professional gangs that commit such crimes in major cities around the world. CCTVs have played a vital role in identifying suspects, ” he said.
“A few high profile murder cases along with some recent major burglaries could have been easily investigated, if the CCTV cameras were monitored and if they had produced quality images,” he said.
According to sources, around Rs 50 crore would be required for the complete installation of CCTV cameras in each of the seven police divisions, along with a monitoring centre. The project could cost upto Rs 350 crore, including maintenance and repairs of the cameras for five years.
The City police conceived the idea of introducing CCTV cameras to law and order policing when N M Achutha Rao was the commissioner six years ago. The police deposited Rs 17 crore with the Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation (KSPHC) to implement it.
Former DG&IGP Dr Ajai Kumar Singh and former commissioner Shankar Bidari took it forward, but KSPHC failed to implement the same, sources in the department said.
A few senior police officers expressed helplessness in cracking cases in the absence of evidence as the activities were not recorded. They pressured former commissioner B G Jyothiprakash Mirji to provide CCTV cameras for law and order policing. The project was revised, so also the cost. Auradkar obtained proposals from all seven DCPs in this regard, sources said.
The traffic police have installed and are maintaining 179 CCTV cameras across the City. They removed four of them to facilitate the ongoing Metrorail project. They are planning to add another 100 cameras for which the tender process in on, said an officer.
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