More CCTV cameras would have made policing easier: Delhi High Court to police

The court directed the police not to depend on CSR activities and put up more close circuit TVs on its own with signboards saying that people are under surveillance.
Image for representational purpose only.
Image for representational purpose only.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today took the police to task for lack of CCTVs in the national capital, saying they had been receiving messages on social media platform that miscreants were carrying out thefts and robberies at traffic lights by puncturing tyres or breaking the glasses of stationary vehicles.

"Had you done this in time (putting up CCTVs), your work would have been lessened and Delhi would not have been called the 'dash capital' of the country," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said, indicating that the national capital was being called as the crime capital.

The comments came during the hearing of a case it has initiated on its own in connection with the recovery of an unidentified woman's body from Shantivan area on the banks of the Yamuna two days ago and whose autopsy has not yet been carried out.

The court asked police whether there were any cameras installed at traffic lights and intersections to check such incidents of robbery and catching the culprits.

"Are you doing anything to check this activity," the court asked.

The police said in some areas it depends on corporate social responsibility (CSR) of companies to install CCTVs and added that after the December 16, 2012 gangrape case, it had floated a tender for procurement of more cameras.

On December 16, 2012 a young woman was brutally gangraped in a moving bus.

She later succumbed to the injuries inflicted on her by the rapists.

The court directed the police not to depend on CSR activities and put up more close circuit TVs on its own with signboards saying that people are under surveillance.

It also directed the police that the first ring of a call made to the emergency number 100 should be recorded and the time logged to improve the response time.

People should not be made to wait for several minutes for the call to be picked up, it said.

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