As the police personnel are being stretched to the limits with their increasing work load comprising patrol beats, special duties and vehicle checks, their dependence on technology has become inevitable. This time, specifically, the CCTV cameras.
In order to check crimes and anti-social activities, the Chennai City Police undertook the ‘third eye campaign’ that has helped them a lot. As part of the campaign, several police stations in the city are seeking the cooperation of commercial establishments and residential apartment complexes to to install closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras to help prevent criminal activities.
A senior official of the Chennai City Police said T. Nagar district being an important commercial and residential locality, the police have been pro-active in setting up CCTV cameras. Officials say they loop the feed from these CCTV cameras with the local police stations and this has helped them to rush to a spot in case of a trouble or offence if it has been captured on the feed.
K.K. Nagar Police have taken the lead in this by organising meetings with residential welfare associations every month seeking their cooperation to fix CCTV cameras in their localities.
M.S. Bhaskar, Inspector, K.K. Nagar Police Station, said more than 36 important road junctions in his area have been covered under the ‘third eye campaign’ with 942 individual houses, apartments and commercial establishments fixing cameras facing the roads. He said 73 meetings with residents welfare associations have been conducted, the latest being the inauguration of CCTV installations in Lambert Nagar in Virugambakkam. A total of 18 cameras were installed in the prime residential locality in Virugambakkam.
The police team of K.K. Nagar are able to monitor the 36 road junctions and other vulnerable points round-the-clock by browsing the internet portal linked to the cameras facing the roads. Jayabalan, vice-president, Lambert Nagar Residents Welfare Association, said the installation of CCTV cameras has helped residents keep a tab on outsiders in the locality.
