HYDERABAD: While the police are encouraging residents and shop-owners to install closed-circuit TV cameras on their premises to improve their safety and prevent thefts, the offenders, house burglars in particular, are targeting those very cameras and the digital video recording (DVR) equipment to erase evidence. They are either damaging the equipment or taking it away with them.
This modus operandi has been observed in the recent incidents, the latest being the burglary at a wine shop in Abdullapurmet on the city’s outskirts where the thieves broke the shutter open and decamped with `8,600 in cash and the DVR equipment.
In some instances, the CC cameras have even forced the offenders to withdraw their plans afraid that they would be caught. A month ago, a group of miscreants, suspected to be members of the notorious chaddi gang, entered an apartment at Bachupally but, on noticing the LCD screen in the guard’s room where all camera feeds are displayed, called off their attempt and slipped away.
With the recent incidents, it has become clear that the police, though are insistent that CCTV cameras be installed by citizens at their places, have, however, not yet come out with foolproof measures to ensure the safety and functioning of these devices. But they are not entirely to blame. “At every meeting, we tell the residents about the measures to be taken to ensure that the cameras and the equipment are safe and in working condition always. Beyond that, we cannot do as we cannot enter into their space and check them” explained a senior police official.
The question of whether cameras are functioning or not comes into picture only when an offence occurs. “The local police should once in a while inspect the functioning of these cameras at least in major and crime-prone areas.” another official suggested.
The CCTV camera is seen as a force multiplier in the Telangana police department and is often described by officials as being equal to 100 policemen. The state police have also mooted installation of cameras through the community policing project and the Nenu Saitham project, in which cameras fixed at individual spaces can be used for surveillance in the vicinity.