Telangana cops first in the country to use Facial Recognition System

HYDERABAD: The

facial recognition system

(FRS) has already started paying dividends, helping cops net notorious offenders.

On Thursday,

DGP M Mahendar Reddy

announced that FRS would be accessible to all field-level police personnel through TSCOP mobile app. As expected before launch of any new application, police put it for pilot testing in the field and achieved success.

FRS played a key role in the recent arrest of 44-year-old interstate thief G Janaki from Gundala in Vijayawada. Janaki stole the purse of a woman travelling in an RTC city bus in Tarnaka area on May 1. Janaki found an ATM card with its PIN written on it. Using the card, Janaki withdrew cash from an ICICI Bank ATM in Lalaguda area and the victim lodged a complaint with police.

Police obtained CCTV footage from the ATM and ran the feed containing the face of the accused in FRS. “We got a hit in FRS indicating that the accused is a thief from Vijayawada. During subsequent probe, we tracked the accused and arrested her,” DCP, North Zone, B Sumathi said.

While running a suspect’s photos and videograbs through FRS has been helping police nab offenders like Janaki, cops have also started installing high resolution cameras across the city at strategic locations to live scan images through FRS to identify the movement of suspects and wanted offenders.

With the help of cameras near the

Secunderabad

railway station, police were able to arrest two robbers and a pseudo cop when their movement was flagged by FRS. Also, they reportedly nabbed two notorious interstate chain-snatchers with the help of FRS.

Cameras with resolution ranging between two mega pixel and 16 mega pixel were installed at 28 locations, including railway stations at Secunderabad, Nampally, Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (MGBS), Jubilee Bus Station (JBS), Mehdipatnam, Charminar, Lakdikapul, Secretariat, Tank Bund, Necklace Road, Shahalibanda, Panjagutta and Jubilee Hills Checkpost.