Karachi inches towards ‘Safe City’ dream

Soldier Bazaar police station gets control room with access to 100 CCTV cameras

KARACHI:

Mostly people from other cities and drug addicts have been found involved in street crimes, said Karachi police chief Javed Alam Odho on Wednesday while inaugurating the command and control room with access to 100 CCTV cameras set up at the Community Policing Karachi (CPK) centre at the Soldier Bazaar Police Station.

CPK Executive Director Murad Sohni, DIG East, SSP District East, SP Jamshed Quarter and other police officers were present at the event. Odho said that the government lacks facilities and presently policing is not possible without public-private partnership. He said the precinct at Soldier Bazar was the fifth where a network of CCTV cameras has been installed.

He attributed a 30 to 35 per cent reduction in crime in places where cameras have been installed. Odho acknowledged that crime was a problem and that more police personnel were required. He said that the pace at which closed circuit cameras were being installed and control rooms established and activated at police stations, Karachi would be able to meet half of the shortfall from the Safe City project that envisions installation of 10,000 such cameras across the city. Additional Inspector General Odho told journalists that 3,750 cameras have been installed.

He observed that while crime had gone down, there was an increase in incidents of street crimes, with the ‘muggers’ killing people for resisting robberies. Odho added that police reports of these incidents showed that mostly drug dealers and illegal immigrants were involved in the street crime. In a bid to curb such incidents, an operation was carried out in the vicinity of Katti Pahari in Qasba Colony. Intelligence-based operations were ongoing in areas as well, he added.