The six members of the gang from Jharkhand who killed businessman Vikram Dhamija last Monday or the inter-State gangs caught by the police in the last few months, all stayed in various hotels and lodges before committing the crime. Even the gang that was responsible for looting the jewellery workshop in Vijayawada recently also stayed in a lodge. The modus of these inter-State gangs has been similar. They come to the city a few days ahead, stay in a lodge or hotel, conduct a recce and then commit the crime.
Since hotel or lodges appear to be the meeting place, the Visakhapatnam City Police are working out a plan to bring all hotels, lodges, dormitories, service apartments and even paying guest accommodation under single online platform.
A pilot project will be launched in a week’s time, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) K. Fakeerappa.
Website
As of now the police contact the lodges or hotels and physically collect the data of guests arriving and departing. “The system of hotel booking and registration will be made online and we are planning to develop an exclusive website to receive and store all the reservation data,” said the DCP.
To begin with the data will be fed online to the police server and slowly other details such as address and photographs of the guests will be loaded. All the hotels and lodges do not have the practice of clicking the pictures of the incoming guests and it will now be made mandatory along with bio-metric recognition.
“The data will be compared to the police database to ascertain whether the guest has any criminal background. But this is futuristic and we are working towards it,” said Mr. Fakeerappa.
Not only hotels and lodges but even paying guest accommodation, dormitories and service apartments will be brought under this fold.
According to the police, the gang from Jharkhand stayed at a dormitory and submitted fake cell phone number and Aadhaar as proof of identity.
Hotel and lodge managements will be given an App through which they can dial the number provided and the receiver will get an OTP (One time password), and this will indicate whether the number provided was genuine. And the bio-metric recognition will indicate veracity of the Aadhaar or any other ID provided, said Mr. Fakeerappa.
