Engineer installing CCTV cameras flees with 4 hard disks from police stations in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: An engineer tasked with transferring CCTV systems during the shifting of a police station allegedly stole four 8 TB hard disks. The incident came to light when police tried to review footage of two separate incidents that occurred on the station premises. Unable to access the recordings, they contacted the service engineering company, which led to the discovery of the theft. Before removing the hard disks, the accused, Sumnath, deactivated the network video recorder (NVR) to conceal his action.Recently, the old building of Chamarajpet police station was demolished and reconstructed. During the work, both the law and order, and traffic stations were shifted to a temporary place. Later, they shifted back to new building.As per the complaint filed by Venkatesh N, owner of a private firm, he had taken a sub-contract from a company that provides CCTV camera services to police stations. Venkatesh assigned Sumanth, who had a piecework contract from him, to install CCTV cameras in the new building between Jan 18 and Jan 21.Police wanted to access the footage of two cases: one about the attack on autorickshaw driver Nayamath Pasha by a group at 2am on Jan 14, accusing him of ransacking a car belonging to Chandan. Based on Nayamath's complaint, police did spot inspection at noon. On March 24, the attackers got to know about the FIR, and a group of around 30 to 40 people staged a protest on the station premises demanding the arrest of Nayamath and manhandled policemen. Police tried to access the CCTV footage of the crowd manhandling cops at 10am but in vain. It was found that the footage from Oct 26, 2024, till Jan 20 this year was missing. Venkatesh found that two hard disks from the law and order police station, and two from the traffic police station were also missing. Sumanth had turned off the NVR between 6.53pm and 6.56pm on Jan 21 and stole the hard disks. Each costs around Rs 22,000.A case has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) section 305 (Theft in a dwelling house, or means of transportation or place of worship, etc.). "We are yet to make any arrests in the case," an officer said.