The police have decided to identity crime prone areas in the district on the lines of identifying accident prone areas and install CCTV cameras in order to improve security and prevent incidence of crimes, Superintendent of Police N Manivannan has said.
When the district police launched the project to install CCTV cameras at strategic points in December, 2012, they had identified 995 spots throughout the district and installed cameras so far in 683 places, including shopping areas, bazaars, bus stands and important public gathering places, the SP said.
“Now we have decided to focus on crime prone areas and bring the areas under security scanner,” the SP said on Tuesday. The police were allotted road safety fund of Rs. 35 lakh and it would be utilised for installing cameras in crime and accident prone areas and important road junctions to detect hit and run cases. They proposed to install the cameras in 300 odd spots and they would complete the installation in the next six months. They have called for tenders, he added.
In the next phase, police proposed to permanently install CCTV cameras at places where over 5,000 people gather to celebrate functions and observe anniversaries such as Immanuel Sekaran death anniversary in Paramakudi and Thevar Guru Puja in Pasumpon, the SP said. While making security arrangements for these events, the police hitherto engaged private agencies for installing speed dome and CCTV cameras, he said.
The SP said the Hello Police, the innovative public information system launched in December 2014 worked well. Under the system, public could alert the police on illegal and anti-social acts by calling or sending SMS to the dedicated number 83000 31100.
In the last seven months since January, Hello police had received 6,187 calls, based on which, 383 FIRs and 239 CSRs were registered respectively. In most of the others cases, the offenders were warned and let off, he said.
