Murder cases: Ahmedabad cops grope in dark in absence of CCTV footage

AHMEDABAD: With presence of around 3,300 closed-circuit cameras, Ahmedabad has already become a surveillance city but when it comes to detecting a murderer, the cops seem to be resigned to the reality of blind CCTVs.
The city witnessed three murders in the last 19 days with three unidentified bodies found from Ellisbridge, Sabarmati riverfront near Paldi and GMDC ground in Vastrapur. But not a single case has been solved by the city police who claimed to be busy with upcoming Rath Yatra festival falling on July 4.
The first incident took place on June 11 when a woman from an NGO in Ellisbridge area of the city called up police and informed about a charred and mutilated body dumped on Ellis Bridge. On that day, though police were informed about the body in morning, they took four hours to decide jurisdiction of the offence. Finally, the case was registered on June 11 evening with Gaekwad Haveli police who are still struggling to ascertain the identity of the victim.
The body parts were mutilated and burned in such a way that the cops could not even decide whether the deceased was a man or woman and there is absolutely no clue to the victim's age either, said a cop from Gaekwad Haveli police. Police took nearly three weeks to check CCTV footage but did not get a single clue.
There are at least 40 CCTV cameras installed around Ellis Bridge, Ellisbridge police station and Victoria garden but none of them captured any glimpse of the accused who dumped the body.
Another incident was registered with Sabarmati Riverfront (West) police on June 12. The body of a 25-year-old man was found from a ground near a fun fair on riverfront besides Tagore hall in Paldi area of the city. Police swung into action, picked up 12 labourers, grilled them, but failed to get any clue about the victim's identity and could not get any CCTV footage to give them any clue.
"We are yet to get any clue about the murder," said inspector M A Singh of Sabarmati Riverfront (West) police.
The third incident took place at GMDC ground in jurisdiction of Vastrapur police where the body of a man was found on Saturday morning. "We did not receive any proof about the victim's identity nor we could get any CCTV footage which could help in investigation," said inspector M M Jadeja of Vastrapur police.