The Ranipet district police has decided to link surveillance systems, including CCTV cameras and alarms in banks, and ATMs with monitoring cells at police stations to strengthen its existing surveillance mechanism.
As a first step, the district police, led by Superintendent of Police Deepa Satyan, would discuss with the representatives of banks early next week to chalk out plans to prevent crimes at cash spots such as ATMs.
The initiative comes a day after an unidentified gang decamped with an ATM containing ₹3.91 lakh in Perungalathur near Arakkonam around 2.30 a.m on Friday. The private bank ATM is located at the entrance of an engineering college on the Tiruttani-Tiruvallur high road in Arakkonam taluk.
“The ATM burglary is a detectable theft. Despite the lack of CCTV cameras in the ATM, we gathered vital clues to narrow down the suspects. Wait for a day,” Pugazhenthi Ganesan, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Arakkonam sub-division, Ranipet, told The Hindu .
At present, Ranipet has more than 60 banks, including private ones, with around 350 ATMs in its limits. Most of the banks and its ATMs within the busy areas in major towns such as Walajah, Arcot, Sholinghur, Nemili, Visharam, Thimiri and Arakkonam have CCTV cameras. However, many ATMs on the outskirts do not have adequate surveillance systems.
The ATM in Arakkonam that was stolen on Friday did not have CCTV camera. It lacked a security guard and alarm system too. Instead, the kiosk had only a camera fitted in the machine that could capture images only when an ATM card was inserted into the machine.
Under the initiative, the Ranipet police would make it mandatory for all public facilities to have CCTV cameras and alarm systems that have to be connected to the surveillance system at the district police headquarters and local police stations.
Keeping an eye
These public facilities would be monitored by the bank staff and Information Technology wing of the district police round the clock. Each beat policeman, on an average, has to make entries in 25 point books with respective police station limits every day.
Currently, the Ranipet district has 1,150 such point books. They are crime and accident prone spots in the district. The district has 18 police stations on Law & Order wing. On an average, each police station has at least three beat police teams.
