ADCP-I Deepak Pareek watches the live CCTV feed of privately owned cameras at the Kotwali police station in Ludhiana on Tuesday. Tribune photo

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 15

Taking a lead in making the optimum use of technology to tackle crime and to keep a hawk eye on criminals, Deepak Pareek, Additional DCP-1, Ludhiana Commissionerate, has taken the initiative to take the live feed of CCTV cameras installed by private establishments directly on mobile phones of the SHOs and on the LED screens at police stations.

Contact SHOs: ADCP

ADCP Deepak Pareek called upon people to visit their SHOs concerned and get their cameras integrated with this system at the police station. He said integrating civil cameras (privately-owned ones) is the first such initiative. Police districts usually have set up control rooms with the police owned cameras or Smart City cameras and feed of these cameras is available at the police district control room only and whenever the SHO needs any footage, he has to visit the control room for the same. In this case, the footage is available at one click on the SHOs’ mobile phone and at the screen installed at the thana.

This is the first-of-its-kind initiative in Punjab in which live feed of civil cameras is being monitored by police stations.

The Kotwali and the police division No. 2 became the first two police stations in the city to keep a watch on the live feed provided by shops and others private offices.

The ADCP worked for two months to make this project a success.

Talking to The Tribune, ADCP Pareek said, “We were looking for a cost-effective and scalable model to use technology as a force multiplier.

Today, there is a lot of awareness about the utility of the CCTV cameras and many houses, shops, malls, schools, hospitals, factories and organisations have installed good-quality IP-based CCTV cameras for their security and surveillance purpose. However, these all CCTV cameras are stand-alone and what was needed was a solution to integrate these so that their footage could be available at the click of a button to the police stations.”

To achieve this, the local police have adopted a simple yet an effective solution. The police motivated shopkeepers on main roads to share the footages of their CCTV cameras through the Internet with their local SHO, ADCP Pareek said, adding that the SHO uses the Internet on his mobile, at police station and a simple application to integrate the footages of different cameras installed at different locations onto one screen.

“All equipment is owned by the shopkeeper. The police station uses existing wifi, mobile and TV screen, so no new cost is involved. This model is also scaleable, as up to 50 DVRs can be easily viewed through the same application.”

This integration will help the local Station House Officer to keep an eye on his jurisdiction area from his mobile phone/TV screen in the thanas,” said Pareek.

Two police stations at forefront, more to follow suit

This model is also scaleable as the police have started it at the Kotwali police station and police station 2, but slowly will cover all stations in Zone 1. So, all SHOs will have access to these footages on their mobiles/screens installed at police stations without any extra cost. SHO Kotwali Harjit Singh said over 12 cameras had been integrated and many more were to be integrated in the days to come.