The Chennai traffic police has planned to provide more body-worn cameras to the traffic policemen involved in vehicle checks and regulations in the city.
In the first week of February, the traffic police had police had distributed body-worn cameras to the personnel in four places in the city, after the death of Manikandan, who set himself ablaze after allegedly getting humiliated by a traffic police officer near SRP Tools junction in Taramani on January 24. A few days later, another video of a two-wheeler rider being abused and manhandled by a traffic policeman on GST Road in Meenambakkam on January 27 surfaced on social media.
The body-worn cameras were distributed to monitor the interaction between traffic policeman and motorists. The department hoped that it would help prevent officers from using abusing language and as well as motorists arguing unnecessarily with the police.
The cameras were distributed to traffic inspectors of four stations — Flower Bazaar, Koyambedu, Marina and Teynampet.
High quality features
A senior officer said that each device has a movable camera, high resolution LCD display, video and audio recording facilities, and 32-gb byte memory to store recorded data.
A traffic policeman on Poonamallee High Road-Evening Bazaar Road, who has been using the device from the first week of February, said it was a good move.
“Not many understand how certain motorists provoke us and paint the entire department as being corrupt. The body-worn cameras will help bring down such confrontations and should be distributed to all the traffic policemen across the city.”
