Even as the police are banking on latest technologies to track down criminals, there have been instances when criminals outsmarted CCTV cameras.
The first thing that burglars who murdered an ATM watchman in Madurai in April last did, was to damage the CCTV camera in the centre. The burglars, who initially approached the camera with their faces covered, broke the camera, leaving little clue for the investigators.
In another interesting incident, thieves who looted an ATM at Singanallur in Coimbatore, smeared the camera screen with black paint, leaving no trace of their identity. Though both burglary attempts failed, the clever moves of the culprits left even the investigators stumped. However, industry experts say there are technological solutions available to deter such acts.
“There is this option wherein an alarm would go off if there is an attempt to tamper with the camera. This is one of the features of the CCTV camera system. The people at the monitoring unit will immediately come to know of such attempts. But most of the users are not aware of these technological options and are not activating the security features,” said Vimal Jose M, secretary (rest of TN), Electronics Security Association of India.
He says there are even advanced cameras that would make it impossible for the criminals to identify the presence of CCTV cameras. “There are pinhole cameras which a visitor cannot detect. There are cameras whose screen looks like a mirror and people cannot make out that it is a camera, by its appearance,” Jose adds.