Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
If you are thinking that with installation of CCTV cameras in the city, the police are keeping close watch on every movement in city with eagle eye. Then you are wrong.
The fact is - the city cops are using the system without proper emphasis on crime prevention and security of citizens. Only Traffic Cops have been deployed to monitor the system with focus on stream lining traffic and issuing e-challan. The system was ready for the use since more then six months.
The Hitavada visited City Operation Centre (COC) made of crores of rupees situated at NMC building in Civil Lines and noticed that staff of Traffic Police was only deployed at the system. Sources informed that a total of 14 traffic constable were tasked to monitor the system from traffic control branch.
The COC was made basically for the real-time surveillance of city supposing police would use the system for making Nagpur more safer. However, only traffic cops monitoring real-time the CCTV footage between 9 am and 9 pm. It means, the whole system just recording city happenings in night hours but no one there to act.
The police is also getting CCTV feeds at Special Branch where a television was installed. But that screen was used after receiving information of anything wrong was happened. Then police click the camera accordingly and then check what actually happened. This is also not in Police Control Room which nerve of policing.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Zone V Harsh Poddar, who is the nodal officer for the project, informed The Hitavada that cops were not monitoring the CCTV at COC as it was not for City Police. "That was created for the NMC and we will start real-time monitoring after Command Control Centre (CCC) would be set-up near Police Control Room," he said. He also claimed that Zonal DCP's are getting feeds of CCTV at their offices.
After verifying the claims made by DCP Harsh Poddar, The Hitavada learnt that there was no point of not using COC by police in any official communication. Even a letter was given to Police Department for deployment of men at COC, sources in NMC informed.
Construction work of CCC is yet to began and it would take almost three years for completion. If city police has decided to act as per the plans of DCP Poddar, then, citizens would not get full benefit of the system on which Rs 167 crore have been spent from the pockets of common man.
In DCP's offices, only two screens have been installed -one for DCP and another for its staff. Here, the police would randomly getting feeds of cameras installed in the city. It means, entire city would be monitored only on five TV screens at five DCP's offices in day hours while the COC where multiple screens have been installed would not be used by the police.
Use CCTV for proactive policing, Ex-DGP Dixit
Former State Director General of Police (DCP) Pravin Dixit said that the police should use the CCTVs for proactive policing not just for reactive policing. The usual use of CCTV is being made post-facto of incident. After the incident was over, police start looking for CCTV footage, he said.
The ideal situation is to have advance use of the system. There are certain pockets where eve-teasing, chain snatching, body offences takes place, the police needs to be contiguously monitor such pockets. If the police will able to register even four to five offences everyday by observing CCTV and without waiting for the complaint that would go longway in creating impact among the criminals, the former DGP added.
Traffic cops generated 2.35 lakh e-challans
Using the system the traffic police have generated 2.35 lakh e-challans from April to August this year. The city police have made 704 request for video footage and received full evidence in 356 cases from November 2017 to August this year.
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