KARACHI, Dec 28: Nishtar Park — one of the ideal places for holding major political and religious gatherings in the city — has been linked with the city government’s command and control room through surveillance cameras. The Jamshed Town administration has earmarked Rs15 million for the project.

A ceremony was held on Sunday evening to formally kick off the work to bring Nishtar Park, the roads and streets in its precinct and the portion of M.A. Jinnah Road running parallel to the Quaid-i-Azam mausoleum into the surveillance network. A monitoring room has also been set up at the park and placed under the supervision of Jamshed Town TPO.

Speaking at the ceremony, City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal, said that maintenance of law and order was not the responsibility of the city government but it was undertaking such projects to ensure safety and security of citizens.

“We are constructing bridges, underpasses and roads; laying water and sewerage lines; and all this involves billions of rupees. This is being done for people and if citizens’ lives are not safe, then spending billions rupees on the infrastructure is meaningless,” he argued.

He said the city government had established a modern command and control system in the city. The work on the second phase of the system had begun, he said, adding that it was his desire to link Nishtar Road and M. A. Jinnah Road with the command and control centre and he had now succeeded in his efforts.

“We feel delighted that citizens of Karachi have been provided security through technology,” he said. Technological resources were being employed to meet any challenge from subversive elements, he added.

Mr Kamal said the city government had authorised the police to use the technology in order to monitor security situation. The Karachi DIG had been requested to appoint an SP-level police officer under whose control the police personnel could benefit from the command and control centre.

Town Nazim Javed Ahmed, Naib Nazim Ziauddin Jamal, MNA Rasheed Godel, UC Nazim Asghar Husain and notables of the area were present at the ceremony.—APP