Cops with body cam to keep vigil at Magh Mela

Prayagraj, Jan 19 (IANS) For the first time, over 100 police personnel will wear body cameras on Saturday for the Mauni Amavasya 'snan' (bath) in the ongoing Magh Mela.

The police personnel with body-cams will be mainly deployed on Magh Mela campus, Prayagraj railway junction and Civil Lines bus stand for better crowd and traffic management since maximum number of devotees are expected on Mauni Amavasya.

Around 2 crore devotees are expected to take a dip in Sangam on Mauni Amavasya, considered auspicious by Hindus.

According to official sources, 10 cops each armed with body-worn cameras will be stationed at bus station and railway junction, the rest 80 will be deployed at static locations of Magh Mela including entry and exit points.

These cameras will be connected to ICCC (integrated command & control centre) and senior cops sitting there will be monitoring the crowd, doing crowd analytics as well as note behavioural changes among policemen and visitors.

These body-worn cameras have internet connectivity through SIM cards. With the help of these body-worn cameras, mela cops would also be able to cover black spots where CCTV cameras are not installed.

Commissioner of police Ramit Sharma said, "This is the first time when cops armed with body-worn cameras will be deployed at Magh Mela, Prayagraj railway junction and Civil Lines bus stand that would be helpful for better crowd and traffic management during Mauni Amavasya snan. These body-worn cameras are helpful for high quality audio and video recording, digitization of faces, high-level tracking and monitoring and meta data generation (metadata contains personal and transactional information of the user, device and the movements taking place with data related to the date, time, duration and location of the recorded activities."

Moreover, while facing network congestion or poor connectivity, the facility of docking stations in each police circle will help cops to export videos or data collected to ICCC server.