Safe City Project turns into a white elephant

25 checkpoints pop up again in capital under ‘special security' plan

ISLAMABAD:

The multi-billion Islamabad Safe City Project, inaugurated in 2016 with an aim to monitor important buildings, entry and exit points, roads, commercial centres and a sizable portion of the capital city’s residential areas, proved out to be a white elephant as Islamabad police reverted to relying on conventional security methods.

Under the so-called safe city project — a brainchild of former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who always minced no words in declaring its efficacy and usefulness — not a single major crime could be prevented through surveillance with the help of over 1,900 closed-circuit television cameras.

The efficacy of the multibillion project seems to be crumbling as the federal police have again announced the installation of checkpoints at more than 25 places in Islamabad to keep an eye on the rising crimes and suspected activities. Explaining the usefulness of the safe city project, Chaudhry Nisar Ali had said that there will be no police checkpoints in the federal capital like in developed countries and the entire city will be monitored with the help of CCTV cameras installed in the entire city.

He had claimed that it will be invisible monitoring only aimed at spotting and identifying suspicious vehicles or persons. At that time, the interior ministry had also provided nearly a dozen double cabin wagons to the federal police for the establishment of a Quick Response Force under the safe city project. The job of the Quick Response Force was to reach the crime scenes before the arrival of the police or patrolling teams in case of an emergency.

While the former Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz government completed and activated the safe city project, it did not remove checkpoints on the 72 internal and external routes. During the tenure of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, former interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed ordered the removal of the checkpoints in Islamabad, terming them a nuisance for citizens and an exploitive source for the police personnel. After the PML-N-led coalition government came to power eight months ago, patrolling police and the motorcycle-mounted Eagle Squad again set up unannounced checkpoints across the city.

When the PTI government closed the checkpoints, not a single incident of terrorism took place in Islamabad. After the suicide blast that occurred in I-8 Islamabad last week, the interior ministry and the police high-ups announced the establishment of 25 check posts. In light of rising security concerns, the Islamabad police on Tuesday issued a 'special' plan, keeping security on high alert. Under the plan, the police have set up 25 temporary checkposts across the city and are constantly monitoring the entry points of Islamabad's Red Zone area with the use of safe city cameras.

In an early morning tweet, the police furthered that they are also monitoring metro service passengers through video recordings. In a press release, Islamabad police said in a meeting held under the chair IG Islamabad Police Akbar Nasir Khan, a special plan has been issued because of the security situation under which check posts are being established at 25 different places in Islamabad.