After Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s announcement of successfully installing 2.75 lakh CCTV cameras across the city and his plans to install more than 1 lakh CCTV cameras, senior police officers have welcomed the move as they said that CCTV footage plays an important role in aiding the investigation and helps form crucial evidence in court.
According to several police officers, the moment a crime occurs, be it an incident of theft or murder, investigators procure CCTV footage from cameras installed in the vicinity and analyse the chronology of the incident in order to identify and trace the accused persons.
“CCTV recordings definitely aid the investigation as they help easily identify the accused…once an incident occurs, we procure CCTV footage from all cameras be it private or Government in order to analyse if it can help piece together the events,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) Parvinder Singh said.
Primary part
The DCP said that collecting such footage is the primary part of any investigation and helps in taking the probe further. “Even if the accused flees with a DVR (digital video recorder) of one camera, which happens in some cases, there will be several cameras nearby which will trace him,” he added.
A senior police officer said that there have been various cases where the police skim through and analyse several CCTV recordings and identify the suspect.
“We always encourage residents and RWAs to install CCTV cameras outside their houses and in areas that are prone to theft so that most of the perimeter of an area can be covered,” the officer said.
“CCTV cameras have helped crack several important investigations. After procuring them, we send them to forensic labs to ascertain its authenticity and ensure that the footage is not distorted and doctored, following which it forms a crucial piece of evidence before court,” the officer added.
Specific training
Another police officer, requesting anonymity, said that several constables are specifically trained to analyse such footage meticulously.
“We have around three to four constables who go through these recordings so that we get a clue of what the accused look like as the CCTV cameras through their facial recognition system can also identify an accused even if he has wrapped a cloth around his face,” he said.
“Once in a case, we had procured CCTV footage that was installed as far as 60 km through which we identified the suspects and managed to trace and nab them,” the officer added.
In August, the West district of Delhi Police managed to nab a money lender in a kidnapping and murder case in which he killed a custom clearance agent and dumped his body in Haryana’s Sonipat through the use of CCTV footage. Police also runs an initiative called ‘Nigehbaan’ where it coordinates with several RWAs to install CCTV cameras in localities.
