BENGALURU: Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood plans to bring more areas of Bengaluru under CCTV camera surveillance in order to prevent crimes and enhance convictions. Plans are on to buy 679 CCTV cameras, 579 for law and order wing and 100 for traffic wing is on, the Police commissioner said. The cameras will be functional in another two months, but Bengaluru needs to have more CCTV cameras to help the law enforcers track down suspects and prevent crimes, he said. Mr Sood said, “Content generated by CCTV cameras provide inputs for post-incident analysis, which may lead to detection of cases,” he explains. CCTV cameras will act as deterrence to crimes Mr Sood feels. “Just a caution line reading ‘the entire area is under CCTV surveillance’ helps in crime-prevention”, he said. The number of cases being reported, especially those related to molestation, has increased due to CCTV camera footages. “Molestations occurred in the past and occur even now. However, most cases would go unreported in the past, he said. The Police Commissioner said, thanks to CCTV footage which has evidence value, more cases are now being reported, undoubtedly, CCTV cameras have increased evidence value, deterrence value and registration of cases”. Integration of CCTV cameras installed by government and private agencies under one roof for monitoring requires huge financial resources. The CCTV cameras installed by the City police have been integrated. These cameras are monitored constantly at three places- Traffic Management Centre, Command Centre at Commissioner’s office and at a few police stations, Mr Pravin Sood said. I do not agree that CCTV cameras are not properly maintained, he added. “Cameras become obsolete very fast due to strides in technology. 179 CCTV cameras were installed by traffic Police in 2008 which are obsolete now. The life span of those cameras was seven years, but Police are using them beyond nine years”, Bengaluru Police Chief said. Since there was no HD technology a decade ago the images generated by such cameras are not clear. “We plan to acquire 679 high definition CCTV cameras. We have to constantly keep upgrading and replacing them,” Sood points out. According to Sood one major challenge are the dark stretches of roads. “Poorly lit areas are a big headache where we have CCTV cameras. Crimes thrive in darkness, so we want to install more cameras, but the initiative will go in vain if there is darkness,” the Police Commissioner said.]]>
