The city police have taken recourse to geo-tagging to keep track of the rowdy elements who keep the law enforcers on tenterhooks day in and day out.
Coupled with a geo-tagged photograph, all data related to the over 300 rowdy-sheeters, including their houses are being mapped with latitude and longitude coordinates with the help of the Global Positioning System, says Ongole Deputy Superintendent of Police G. Srinivasa Rao. The GPS-based system will go a long way in curbing the crime rate in the city by monitoring the movements of the offenders at the micro level, he adds.
About 100 CCTV cameras will be installed at all the busy centres across the city to monitor not only vehicular traffic but also nab offenders swiftly and get vital clues during investigation into various incidents of crime, he adds.
All data related to rowdy-sheeters and suspects has been made available to the police personnel concerned and also to the Command Control Centre which keeps a close watch on the activities going on in different parts of the city 24X7, he says, adding that the data related to those who had moved out to other places will be transferred to the police stations concerned.
Counselling
''Rowdyism is more a social problem. We are arranging for treatment for needy rowdy elements by psychiatrists,'' he explains after a counselling session with more than 360 rowdy-sheeters in the Ongole sub-division on Sunday. The department is in the process of identifying those with good conduct for removing their names from the rowdy-sheet, he adds.
Acquittal of a murder accused by court will not have any bearing on the rowdy-sheet against such persons. “We will continue to monitor all rowdy elements till we are fully convinced about the attitudinal change in them. Their profession and spending habits will be monitored at the grassroots level to come to a conclusion on pruning the rowdy list,” Mr. Rao explains.
“We will use drones in a big way for crime prevention and law and order maintenance,'' he adds after successfully testing the efficacy of a drone which recorded the happenings in the busy Church centre area earlier.
Ongole police hope to curb crime rate by closely monitoring the movements of offenders
