Karachi police reluctant to avail CDGK’s surveillance facility

Despite the offer by City Nazim Mustafa Kamal to the police and other law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) for availing the City District Government Karachi’s (CDGK) Command and Control Centre (C&CC) facility for maintaining law and order in the city, these agencies have neither deputed any senior official at the C&CC nor have they contacted the CDGK so far to use the facility.

The city government had extended its surveillance to Nishtar Park and M.A. Jinnah Road a couple of days ago and on this occasion, Kamal had suggested the police and other LEAs to utilize this facility for monitoring activities in these areas during Muharram.

On the other hand, a senior Sindh police official denied the CDGK’s claims that they had turned down its request for using the C&CC. He said that they had been asked by the Sindh Home Department to avail the CDGK facility from 8th to 10th Muharram.

Through CDGK C&CC, both signal-free corridors (I&II), Nishtar Park, M.A. Jinnah Road and other important city roads could be monitored with surveillance cameras, CDGK officials said. They claimed that it was the same technology being used in the United States and other developed countries of the world for maintaining law and order, keeping an eye on anti-social elements at crowded places and identifying culprits involved in sabotage activities.

It is worth mentioning here that the culprits involved in the Nishtar Park carnage a couple of years ago could not be identified after it was learnt that surveillance cameras of the police were not functioning properly at the time of the blast.