MoU signed to install 10,000 surveillance cameras in city

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said Karachi had in the past witnessed incidents of terrorism, but the Sindh Police, the Pakistan Army and the Sindh Rangers joined forces to restore law and order in the provincial capital.

He stated this on Friday as he attended a ceremony held at the Chief Minister House to sign a memorandum of understanding between the Sindh Police and the National Radio & Telecommunication Corporation for the installation of 10,000 security surveillance cameras in Karachi under the Sindh Safe Cities’ Authority.

Speaking on the occasion, Shah recalled that the meetings of the provincial apex committee had held a detailed discussion to establish the Safe Cities’ Authority in the province.

He said that finally after the passage of a few years the Sindh Safe Cities’ Authority came into existence after getting approval from the provincial cabinet. He acknowledged that there was considerable delay in creating the mechanism of that authority.

The chief minister said the apex judiciary had also ordered the provincial government to install 10,000 security surveillance cameras. “Today, the NRTC and the Sindh Police are signing the MoU to jointly install 10,000 cameras as this is a welcoming development,” he said.

The MoU was signed by Additional IG Police/DG Sindh Safe Cities’ Authority Imran Yaqoob Minhas and MD NRTC Brigadier Tofique Ahmed.

The ceremony was also witnessed by Information Technology Minister Taimur Talpur, Law Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab, Commander Corps-V Lt General Humayun Aziz, NRTC senior officials Brig (retd) Nayyar Abbas, Muhammad Sohail Anjum, the home secretary, the IGP, Principal Secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro and others.

Twin islands

Following an aerial survey of the Bundal and Buddo Islands off Karachi’s coast, Sindh government spokesman Barrister Murtaza Wahab rejected media reports about illegal construction works on the twin islands.

In the helicopter survey, Wahab, who is also the chief minister’s adviser on law and environment, was accompanied by Sindh Information and Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah on Friday.

“We did a detailed survey of the islands and hence we verify that no construction work of any sort is being carried out on the islands,” Wahab said. It is worth mentioning here that a meeting of the Sindh cabinet held on last Wednesday had taken notice of news reports that illegal construction works were being carried out on the two islands. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had constituted a committee comprising his cabinet members to survey the islands.

Following Friday’s aerial visit, the Sindh government spokesman said the people of Sindh owned the islands off the coast of the province. “The provincial government will not allow any sort of illegal construction work on the islands.”

He said the Sindh Assembly had given its decision against “unlawful transferring of the ownership of the islands” to the federal government. “We will not accept any move against the interest of the people of Sindh,” he added.

The Sindh Assembly in October this year had unanimously passed a resolution, calling upon the federal government to withdraw the presidential ordinance promulgated to constitute the Pakistan Islands Development Authority while deeming the move “a vicious attempt by the federal government to illegally occupy the islands nearby the Sindh’s coastline”.