CCTVs to oversee Old City

Law enforcing agencies have transformed the route from Charminar to Shah Ali Banda road into a CCTV camera zone. It is surprising to know that 40 CCTV cameras, including 23 are installed in Makkah Masjid, although the distance between the two areas is hardly half a kilometer

Old City has been a bugbear for both right and wrong reasons for the law enforcers. Other than the image problem it suffers from, the headaches that the cops on duty face during normal and tension-prone occasions are many. So it is not surprising that the situation cries for attention of the technological kind.

Of late, law enforcing agencies have increasingly started utilising modern technology to stop crimes in the society. The officers of these agencies are taking help of information technology experts to deal with cyber crimes. The most widely used technology is CCTV cameras.

In a way, our government departments and law enforcing agencies have transformed the route from Charminar to Shah Ali Banda road into a CCTV camera zone. It is surprising to know that 40 CCTV cameras, including 23 are installed in Makkah Masjid, although the distance between the two areas is hardly half a kilometer. Quite puzzling is how the other contiguous areas like Syed Ali Chabutra, Nagulchinta etc have only one camera to monitor public movement. Security concerns aside, what is intriguing is that why have so many CCTV cameras concentrated in one location, while many other areas go unchecked even after being hot spots for crimes and other heinous acts?

In August last, in a daredevil incident in Old City, two women, who stepped into a cloth shop at Gulzar Houz to make purchases, were not only sedated and raped but were also blackmailed by the culprits after filming the heinous act. Murder and arson have also been reported in the other parts of the Old City like Barkas and Chandrayangutta, other than chain-snatching and molestation attempts by anti-social elements.

When enquiries were made as to why Charminar surroundings were full of CCTV cameras, no policeman who was on duty in that zone managed to say anything worthwhile. Officials attached to Charminar Police Station say, they had no clue about why there were so many cameras while the traffic cops say they are in fact quite less in number!

An eternal problem – security and policing – in this part of the city cannot just be left to remote devices if the increasing feeling of anxiety, especially during religious festivals of both the religions is left unattended by human intervention. With the last two years seeing unprecedented communal tension and vicious rumour-mongering, it serves the cause if the police spread the technological tools uniformly!