When opening the command and control room with access to 100 CCTV cameras installed at the Community Policing Karachi (CPK) centre at the Soldier Bazaar Police Station on Wednesday, Karachi police chief Javed Alam Odho noted that most of the people involved in street crimes have been found to be people from other cities and drug addicts.
At the event were CPK Executive Director Murad Sohni, DIG East, SSP District East, SP Jamshed Quarter, and other law enforcement officials. According to Odho, the government lacks infrastructure, making public-private partnerships essential to the current state of policing. He claimed that the Soldier Bazar precinct was the fifth to have a network of CCTV cameras installed.
He attributed a 30 to 35 per cent reduction in crime in places where cameras have been installed. Odho acknowledged that crime was a problem and that more police personnel were required. He said that the pace at which closed circuit cameras were being installed and control rooms established and activated at police stations, Karachi would be able to meet half of the shortfall from the Safe City project that envisions installation of 10,000 such cameras across the city. Additional Inspector General Odho told journalists that 3,750 cameras have been installed.
He observed that while crime had gone down, there was an increase in incidents of street crimes, with the ‘muggers’ killing people for resisting robberies. Odho added that police reports of these incidents showed that mostly drug dealers and illegal immigrants were involved in the street crime. In a bid to curb such incidents, an operation was carried out in the vicinity of Katti Pahari in Qasba Colony. Intelligence-based operations were ongoing in areas as well, he added.
