‘Criminals’ going scot free as police fail to provide TV footage in courts

HYDERABAD: The failure of investigation officers to collect proper evidence due to a dearth of CCTV footage, criminals involved grave offences, including murder and extortion, are going scot free. Even the courts are asking the investigating officers to furnish video footage as proper evidence to identify the accused.

A number of investigation officers (IOs) are overly dependent on CCTV footage to establish the crime and to identify and track the accused. The absence of CCTVs footage is delaying the probe, especially in identifying the accused.

For instance, on October 17, a retired bank employee K. Linga Reddy and his wife Urmila Devi were found murdered reportedly by persons known to them at their residence in Amberpet police limits. Although, the police detained some suspects, the IO was unable to identify the accused due to lack of CCTV footage.

The Amberpet police said that as the place of offence is a busy area and many people move around in the vicinity, it has become difficult to identify the culprits.

It is a similarly tragic state the Rachakonda and Cyberabad police officials are in. An IO of a murder case said that they had collected clues from the scene of the offence but there was no clarity in identifying the accused.

In the past few months, courts have acquitted several accused as the police failed to submit appropriate evidence against them.