Chennai: In the wake of the murder of 24-year-old techie Swathi at the Nungambakkam railway station on June 24, the Madras high court initiated suo motu proceedings in the matter relating to ensuring public safety by taking various measures. including providing CCTV cameras in all important places in the state. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R.Mahadevan ordered notice to the Union and state governments and posted to August 4, further hearing of the case.
Originally, citing the gruesome daylight murder of Swathi in full public view and pointing out the lack of public safety and non-installation of CCTVs, Justice N.Kirubakaran sent a letter to the Chief Justice to take up a suo motu Public Interest Litigation in the matter. The bench, in its present order, said “on a reference made by one of the single judges of this court, the present suo motu proceedings have been registered. Let the reference order be made available to the counsel for the respondents (Union and state governments and Railways) to examine the various issues raised inter alia scientific techniques for detection of crime including installation of CCTV cameras in important places, assessment of requirement as to where all CCTV cameras should be located, non-filling up of vacancies of police force, railway force and other security forces, creation of integrated modern control rooms, requirement of state government to install High Resolution integrated CCTV Cameras on road and enacting the legislation akin to the “Andhra Pradesh Public Safety (Measures) Act, 2013”, the bench added.
Petition seeks report on 10 questions:
The suo motu petition sought a direction to the authorities to submit a report on some 10 queries, including the following – 1.Why scientific advancement with its vast benefits was not fully utilised by the authorities for the benefit of the people especially towards security of the people by installation of CCTV cameras in important places, vantage and strategic locations; 2.Why the authorities have not allotted required and sufficient funds for the purpose of installation of CCTV cameras; 3.In how many places the CCTV cameras have already been fixed and in how many places CCTV cameras were required to be installed; 4.Why the vacancies in the police force, railway force and other security forces have not been filled up; 5.Why not create an integrated modern control room under a single roof with real time inputs connecting CCTV cameras with video recorders round the clock on roads and vantage points connected with police stations in every part of the country to make it a safer place to live in and 6.Why not the state government immediately install high resolution integrated CCTV cameras on roads?
Have info? Call these numbers:
The city police on Tuesday issued phone numbers of officers to contact if anyone has credible information about the murder of S Swathi, an employee of Infosys, at the Nungambakkam station on last Friday. The police promises to keep the information on the murder and details of informer a secret. People who have any leads for police can contact Nungambakkam ACP on 98401-90505, Triplicane DC on 94434-81933, JC (East) on 98409-62359 and AC (south ) on 89399-66985.
The fingerprints of the man who hacked Swathi at Nungambakkam railway station as she waited for the suburban train to travel to Chengalpet to her workplace are not on the police list of historysheeters. Fingerprints lifted from the sickle do not match the prints of any existing criminals on record.
The police have already collected details of Swathi’s mobile phone calls and SMS details and finished conducting enquiries with relatives, friends and people known to her. Police are not in position to get details of her WhatsApp conversations as its parent company Facebook will not share such details from their US server to an investigation agency. “We are waiting for certain technical inputs to track the suspect. Once we get it, we would be in a position to take the case to a logical end,” a police officer said. Sources indicated that the probe team had approached NIC for help to know if the fingerprints lifted from the sickle used to kill the techie match any records in Aadhar card data. Meanwhile, CoP T K Rajendran on Tuesday evening went to Nungambakkam AC’s office to personally review the progress of the case.
CM reviews security scene in Chennai, TN:
Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Tuesday reviewed the law and order situation in the state at the secretariat with police officials. Adviser to Chief Minister Sheela Balakrishnan, state home secretary Apurva Varma, DGP Ashok Kumar and other officials took part in the review meet. The Chief Minister discussed about the recent incidents of crime and law and order situation in the state and instructed the officials to take steps to maintain public peace.
