Beating CCTVs, snatchings at Dariba Kalan leave jewellers worried

Despite 32 CCTV cameras installed to put under surveillance Asia’s largest jewellery market at Old Delhi’s Dariba Kalan area, jewellers there seem troubled with the large number of snatching cases.

However, police ruled out any such trend of snatching cases increasing in Dariba Kalan and claimed that no complaint has been received ever since the CCTV cameras were installed last month.

‘In the past week, three cases of snatching have taken place near the junction where the Dariba Kalan lane meets the Kinari Bazar. It has been happening from decades, but we expected such crimes to stop at least after installing the CCTV cameras,’ said a trader in the marker. 

He further said, ‘in fact the snatchers here have gained so much of expertise that they can beat the CCTV cameras.’

Police claimed that the CCTV cameras are regularly monitored without miss and no such incidents have been tracked. 

‘After the CCTV cameras were installed, we have received no such complaint, nor have we came across anything like that in the CCTV footages that are monitored closely without a miss, a police officer added.

The members of the market association decided to install CCTV cameras in order to put every nook and corner of the market under surveillance after a jeweller was murdered earlier this year before being looted by three robbers, informed Nirmal Kumar Jain, president of the market association at Dariba Kalan.