Delhi Police audit identifies CCTV and lighting gaps at parks

Delhi Police inspected around 1,500 parks on Tuesday and Wednesday, including 300 prominent and larger green spaces. The police audit recorded gaps in CCTV coverage and lighting at several sites.

The exercise followed an alleged sexual assault at Aastha Kunj park in southeast Delhi. Officers logged each park’s size, maintenance agency, reported crimes, visitor numbers, gates, guards, lighting, cameras, dark spots and the condition of boundary walls.

At the DDA’s 170-acre Swarn Jayanti Park in Rohini Sector 10, police recorded insufficient lighting and CCTV coverage, along with dark spots, despite the deployment of 27 round-the-clock guards. District Park in Avantika, Rohini, had guards and lighting but no cameras, one dark spot and a damaged boundary wall.

Smaller parks showed similar gaps. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Park in IP Estate and Tikona Park in Masjid Moth had no CCTV cameras; police marked Tikona Park’s lighting as “not good”. By contrast, the MCD-run Roshanara Bagh had 21 cameras and no identified dark spots, while NDMC’s Nehru Park had 12 cameras.

Police said they will send the audit details to the departments responsible for each park for action on infrastructure and patrolling.