Women’s safety: Install more CCTVs, rules HC
Better street lighting, installing more CCTV cameras and public toilets would help ensure safety and security of women in the city, the Delhi high court said on Thursday.
The high court made this observation when the police told it that there were 118 vulnerable locations in the city for which about 587 CCTVs were required to be installed, but their procurement and installation would take a lot of time.
Asserting that funds shortage should not be cited as an excuse for not installing enough CCTV cameras, a bench of justices comprising Vipin Sanghi and P. S. Teji said there was a “grave urgency” for taking such measures. If sufficient funds were not available with the agencies, it will direct the funds drawn from the Nirbhaya and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan funds, the high court said.
The bench asked additional solicitor general ( ASG) Sanjay Jain to take instructions in this regard and listed the matter for further hearing on Dec. 4.
In view of the police's submission, the high court directed that since the Aman Vihar area in west Delhi was “statistically shown to be vulnerable to children going missing”, more CCTV cameras ought to be set up on a priority basis. “It a matter of concern, especially when minors are often forced into begging and flesh trade,” the high court said.
According to the police, represented by its standing counsel Rahul Mehra and advocate Tushar Sannu, in the past two years, there were 389 cases of missing children in Aman Vihar alone out of them many are still untraced.
Besides, 801 adults were also reported missing from the area and of those 414, including 206 women, are yet to be traced, police informed the bench.
Taking note of the large number of missing cases, the court has said it “reflects an extremely sad state of affairs”.
The police set up a Special Investigation Team ( SIT), headed by DCP, Crime, Joy Tirkey, to probe whether any organised mafia was involved in these disappearances and if yes, to “identify and dissolve” such groups.