The city police, on Monday, arrested a 44-year-old electrician on the charge of secretly installing a video camera fitted with a wireless transmitter in the bathroom of the house of one of his long-time neighbours at Muttada.
Peroorkada Circle Inspector D. Asokan identified the suspect as Reghunath. He said the family members had last year contracted the electrician, who they implicitly trusted, to install an electric water heater in one of their shower rooms.
Mr. Asokan said the accused installed the miniature camera inside the ‘altometer box’ attached to the heater. The camera had a small ‘radio AV transmitter’ which communicated the images it captured to a computer-linked receiver installed at the electrician’s house.
Hard disc seized
He said the accused had been viewing the video feed from the camera for the past eight months. Most of it was stored in the man’s computer. The police have seized the hard disc for cyber forensic examination. They said there were two married women, both sisters, and their children in the house. Their spouses were employed in the Gulf.
Mr. Asokan said the ‘confidence trickery’ of the suspect came to light when one of the sisters discovered the miniature camera by chance. She informed her aged father about it, who communicated the matter to the police.
The police said Reghunath specialised in installing water heaters. They said they had received a spate of requests from the neighbourhood seeking police help to verify if the electrician had installed similar surveillance devices in their homes.
The accused told the police that he had installed the camera to protect his neighbour’s house from break-ins.
The police said he would be produced before the court on the charge of violating the Information Technology Act, privacy intrusion, trespass, and outraging the modesty of women.
