Guwahati, Jan 11: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday chaired the first phase of a key police review meeting at the Assam Police headquarters here and took stock of police preparedness to deal with “new-age” crimes and development of human intelligence.
The chief minister, in the presence of senior officials of the home and police departments, also reviewed the functioning of the city police department in order to improve policing in Guwahati, which is Northeast’s largest city, and make it crime free.
Later, Sarma informed mediapersons that the city camera installation project for Guwahati was reviewed threadbare in the meeting and that with the cooperation of the people, the government planned to install as many as 50,000 close-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) on government and private offices, commercial establishments, shops with more than five employees each, as well as on private apartments in Guwahati.
“We have decided to install 50,000 additional CCTVs in Guwahati with the cooperation of the people by Durga Puja next year. The cameras have to be registered with the Assam Police’s portal before installation and have a storage capacity of 30 days at least,” the chief minister said.
He further said that officers in-charge of police stations (OCs) and sub inspectors (SIs) would not be able to randomly check the CCTVs installed in private residential complexes and that legal notices have to be served for the purpose.
“From now on, it will be mandatory for all residential apartments to install CCTVs. Such surveillance cameras will have to be installed in the residences of overseas residents who have parents staying alone in the city or working couples who have children staying with caretakers during the day,” the chief minister said.
He reiterated that a new law would come into force soon to make installation of CCTV cameras mandatory in all commercial establishments and shops, having more than five employees.
“In this regard, we will soon pass a new legislation in the Assam Assembly,” he added.
Speaking on the upgrade of Assam Police services, the chief minister said that very soon people would be able to register FIRs without coming to the police stations.
“As many as 20 services of the state police force will be made available through a mobile application and people can register an FIR online itself,” he said.
Sarma further informed that the Assam DGP would on January 16 brief mediapersons on the crime trends in the state last year vis-à-vis the crime scenario in the previous year.
“From now on, we have taken a decision that the DGP will address an annual media conference in January every year where the SPs of the districts will be virtually present. Questions from mediapersons will be taken by the DGP and SPs during the conference,” he said.
The chief minister also informed that a member each from nearly 300 families of Assam Police jawans, martyred in encounters with insurgents, would be provided government jobs during a programme on January 25, 2023.
Earlier, while interacting with the media, the chief minister had said that human intelligence was found wanting to an extent in the Guwahati police department in regard to tackling crimes in December 2022, even as the police have recovered their ground after the setback.
“However, we also have to take into consideration the fact that along with the police adopting new methods to tackle crimes, the criminals too are changing their techniques and tactics,” he had said.