Kolkata: Metro Railway and other stations like Howrah and Sealdah will soon get modern CCTV cameras with higher resolution and video analytics. The non-functional baggage scanners at Metro stations will also be replaced gradually, Arun Kumar, director general, Railway Protection Force (RPF), said in Kolkata on Monday. During the day, he held several meetings and also launched a Criminal Information Repository (CIR) containing details of 113 miscreants involved in luggage theft in the Howrah division of Eastern Railway.
Recently, the RPF set up a dedicated anti-TOPB (Theft of Passenger Belongings) team in the Howrah division under Migom Doley, ASC-I and Farid Ahmed, inspector. In a short while this team arrested 113 criminals and recovered passengers’ belongings worth Rs 2,17,624. Kumar appreciated the effort of Rajnish Kumar Tripathi, Sr DSC, Howrah, for this initiative. Soon, this will be replicated by other divisions and zonal railways. This will be for all criminals and not only those involved in theft. The details of the criminals will be fed into a system of which the CCTV cameras will also be a part.
“The moment a suspect’s face is caught on camera, it will be matched with the database. Once it is confirmed that the person is a history-sheeter, an alarm will sound in the control room and the personnel on the ground will be alerted. We started the Integrated Security Scheme (ISS) for 202 stations after the 26/11 attacks. In the second phase of ISS, the baggage scanners at the Metro stations will be replaced. Now, 473 stations have CCTV cameras. Soon, more than 6,000 stations will have the advanced cameras,” Kumar said.
According to him, clearance has also been received for boundary walls to plug gaps at stations across the country. The total length of wall sanctioned is 3,000 km. Important stations in and around Kolkata such as Sealdah and Howrah may also get stretches of boundary walls, the DG said, depending on the threat projection. The exercise to plug gaps in important stations like Sealdah and Howrah has already started, Kumar added. When asked whether it would be easy to secure such stations, he said that it has been possible at Allahabad during the ongoing Kumbh Mela.
“We are also looking at better co-ordination between the RPF and the Government Railway Police. A Cabinet note has also been prepared for allowing the RPF to tackle and file FIRs against theft of luggage and crimes against women and children on trains. Once the Parliament passes this, it will become an Act. While we are in the process of filling up nearly 10,000 vacancies in the RPF, efforts are on to use technology as a force multiplier,” the DG said.
Source : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/metro-and-other-stations-to-get-advanced-cctv-cameras/articleshowprint/67731954.cms