Chennai: In a bid to improve safety levels in the city suburban area, the Chrompet police had organised an awareness meeting urging residents to install surveillance cameras around their homes.
Speaking on the need for the same, advocate and secretary of Bharathipuram Welfare Association, R Ramdas, said, “Several instances of chain snatchings, burglaries and robberies have occurred at Bharathipuram earlier. Recently too, residents caught a thief who was trying to steal a laptop from a bachelor’s house.”
In the latest incident, burglars snatched a mobile phone from a young girl near Radha Nagar last week. The police recovered the stolen property with the help of CCTV footage, it is learnt.
This reportedly prompted locals to back the installation of cameras around the locality.
For a start, the Bharathipuram Welfare Association has decided to set up six monitoring systems at vital junctions.
The members are also planning to cover six more places in a similar manner, it is said.
“The entire exercise will approximately cost around Rs three lakh. In addition, we will allocate Rs 10,000 for maintenance purposes,” Ramdas said.
It may be noted that the area currently has cameras only in-and-around police booths.
“The localities have started to realise the potential of CCTVs only off late,” said a participant of the resident-police meet.
Also, many have alleged that the night patrolling teams are spotted only in the main roads, and visit interior stretches only during emergency calls. This needs to be changed, they felt.