After the Punjab government failed to the safe city project in Rawalpindi, the district police have put in place a “crime hotspot monitoring system” to cope with street crimes.
A senior police officer wishing anonymity said that night vision high definition (HD) cameras have been installed at over 86 locations to monitor crime hotspots to round-the-clock.
He said that calls on police emergency helpline had also been linked to the Google earth application.
The police officer told The Express Tribune that the previous Punjab government had approved the safe city project for Rawalpindi after declaring it a highly sensitive district and also allocated funds for it. However, work on the project could not be started.
He said that the police department repeatedly reminded the current provincial government to start work on the safe city project to control the rising crimes in the garrison city, but the request had fallen on deaf ears.
He said that setting up police pickets was not enough to curtail street crimes without equipping the police with modern gadgets.
The police official said the department has drawn a map of over 86 crime hotspots in the garrison city including Commercial Market, Sixth Road Chowk, Murree Road, Raja Bazaar, Fawara Chowk, Peshawar Road and others, which had been linked to the monitoring system.
He said that closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras have been installed at all these spots and a control room has been set up at the Central Police Office office, where staffers work round the clock in three shifts.
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The police officer said that the hotspot monitoring system has proved fruitful in bringing down the crime rate in the city as well as identifying suspects.
He said that through the monitoring system, traffic movement on main thoroughfares, protests, and other activities were also being monitored.
He said that the CCTV cameras had been linked to the internet through fibre cable while the calls received on 15 emergency helpline were also connected with Google earth which helps in tracking the location.
The police official said the crime hotspot system was producing good results as an alternative to the safe city project.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 6th, 2021.
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