Muharram processions: Police install rented modern CCTV cameras

Two drone cameras to be used for aerial surveillance in Rohri and Sukkur

SUKKUR: In an attempt to maintain law and order during Muharram processions, the Sukkur police have installed rented modern closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and will also use two drone cameras for surveillance.

The old CCTV cameras that were installed in Sukkur and Rohri a couple of years ago were of inferior quality and had stopped working, which compelled the police to urgently install new CCTV cameras for the security. The processions of Muharram 9 and Muharram 10 in Rohri were declared 'most sensitive', which is why it was necessary for the authorities to replace the broken CCTV cameras.

More than two-and-a-half months ago, Sukkur SSP Amjad Ahmed Shaikh had written a letter to Sindh IG Allah Dino Khawaja for the replacement of the broken CCTV cameras, but it is still lying pending. To solve the problem urgently, the police had to get CCTV cameras on rent for effective surveillance of the Muharram processions. Besides this, the Sukkur region police have purchased two drone cameras, which were also used during the Muharram 5 procession in Old Sukkur.



Sukkur SSP told The Express Tribune that the CCTV cameras installed in Sukkur and Rohri had developed faults and no cameras were available for surveillance during last year's Muharram processions. The police are already facing security challenges and it was not wise to only depend on manual security, said the SSP. Therefore, the police have installed 18 most modern CCTV cameras in Rohri and 24 in Sukkur on urgent basis for effective monitoring of the processions, he claimed. The SSP added that the new cameras have better pixels, with night and zooming modes.

Other than this, all exit and entry points of Rohri town have been sealed off as part of security for Muharram 9 procession. Walkthrough gates have been installed at various places while heavy contingents of the police and Rangers have been deployed to avert any untoward incident. Every year, thousands of mourners from across the country visit Rohri to take part in the five-centuries-old historic mourning procession.

In 2012, around 42 CCTV cameras were installed in Sukkur and Rohri for security while its monitoring room was established in Sukkur. Sources from the department said that the contract for installing CCTV cameras was given to an owner of a pizza outlet, who had charged Rs250,000 per camera while the actual price of the camera was around Rs20,000. After the installation of cameras, neither any maintenance was carried out, nor was their working monitored. As a result, the sources added, most of the cameras went out of order, while the optic fibre cable was stolen and, thus, millions of rupees spent on these cameras were wasted.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2016.