In the early hours of March 21, three persons, including a juvenile, broke into the Karakachettu Polamamba temple in the city and stole ornaments and other valuables. The police arrested the accused and recovered the stolen property within two weeks.
In this case, a shop at Poorna Market, where the accused had purchased some implements and left them behind at the temple, played a crucial role in zeroing in on them. Similarly, in many other cases, the CCTVs are playing a pivotal role in preventing crimes apart from helping the police to investigate, detect crimes and also to collect scientific evidence to bring the perpetrators to book.
With a motto to make the city more safe, the city police have been insisting on installation of CCTV cameras at all self-owned premises and private establishments in the name — ‘Mana Illu - Mana Badhyatha.’ There was a brief lull due to the Urban Local Body (ULB) elections. The police have intensified the drives in all divisions from April 1 and impressing upon residents of apartment complexes and private establishments on the need to install CCTVs in their premises.
According to Police Commissioner Manish Kumar Sinha, the police personnel were checking the availability of adequate number of cameras, their location at vulnerable points and functioning, during the special drives. The CCTV system should have a recording backup for at least 15 days, he said.
According to police statistics, there are around 402 lodges in the six sub-divisions — East, Dwaraka, North, West, Harbour and South. Among them, 392 lodges have installed 5,243 CCTV cameras, while 10 lodges are yet to install them. East Division houses the maximum number of 240 lodges and of them 236 have already installed CCTV cameras, the police said.
Out of around 1,217 apartments in the six sub-divisions, 687 have installed 5,144 CCTV cameras, while 530 apartments are yet to install them. In Dwaraka sub-division, out of 360 apartments only 148 have installed CCTV cameras. Similarly, out of 301 apartments in South sub-division, only 164 have CCTV cameras, while 137 apartments are yet to install them.
Similarly, out of 624 restaurants in the six sub-divisions, 417 restaurants have installed CCTV cameras.
