The rough and tumble of policing and crime busting are passe and the city police are more relaxed than ever. Be it murder, house burglary or theft, they are now able to crack the case — within 24 hours at times — thanks to the extensive Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) network they built in association with the civil society after a series of meeting with residents associations etc.
The Warangal City Police’s jurisdiction covers three districts – Warangal Urban, Warangal rural and Jangaon districts. Nearly 90% of the area is now covered by CCTV cameras.
“Except for some private business houses in urban areas such as shopping malls, majority of the area is now covered. A total of 620 villages in 39 mandals are totally covered with CCTV network,” City Police Commissioner V. Ravinder told The Hindu .
Remote surveillance
As many as 15 police stations are connected to the local villages directly where police can watch the movement of people.
In a proactive move, the city police had motivated the people in villages as well as colonies in urban areas to install CCTV cameras providing the specifications – three mega pixel, IP-based cameras with infra-red facility that have a 30-day backup and three-year maintenance period.
Further, the Commissioner set a three-month deadline and by July 31, he ensured that majority of the residential colonies in the city installed CCTV cameras.
Now, the city police have a whopping 20,863 CCTV cameras monitoring people’s movement.
“Women from far-flung villages in Lingala Ghanpur of Jangaon district came to thank the police here as the CCTV surveillance has reduced nuisance. Otherwise, idle youth used to sit at public places and tease women attending to their chores,” Mr. Ravinder explains.
Crime busters
Two recent cases highlight how CCTV cameras came in handy.
On June 19, an elderly couple, Damodar Rao (60) and G. Padma (54), was found murdered at their house in Hasanparthy mandal. A youth belonging to the village was suspected to have murdered them and decamped with gold and cash. His movements were recorded on a CCTV camera installed by a resident in the neighbourhood for his personal safety.
The police recovered the footage and saw the youth jumping the wall at midnight. The suspect was apprehended in 12 hours.
Similarly, three women from Tamil Nadu were going around the city and diverting the attention of car owners and stealing valuables. On March 28, they diverted the attention of a theatre owner and decamped with a cash bag containing ₹1 lakh. The trio was arrested the same day after the victim lodged a complaint. Their act was caught on traffic CCTV cameras in Intezargunj police station limits.
‘More modernised now’
“One CCTV camera is equal to 100 police officers. Compared to a decade ago, our department is modernised extensively. Now, we have a dedicated IT department and exclusively trained personnel in software and hardware,” explained the Commissioner.
