How CCTVs in Delhi capture your every move

Every day, tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of such cameras, mostly installed by private home- and business-owners capture details of millions of the city’s residents

The footage shows this writer, dressed in a grey sweater and a pair of jeans, with a backpack, walking out of her house in a predominantly residential neighbourhood in west Delhi. It is 1.32 pm on a not-too-cold December day. She is on her phone, talking, walking towards a car, parked behind a wall. The resolution is clear enough to show details -- she dumps her backpack in the car and gets in.

A study by a pro-consumer website said Delhi has 19.96 cameras per 1,000 people. (HT Photo)

Every day, tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of such cameras, mostly installed by private home- and business-owners capture details of millions of the city’s residents. It’s usually deleted after a few days – of little relevance to someone. But sometimes, it comes in useful.

Take for instance the triple murder – of a couple and their domestic help – in west Delhi, allegedly by the couple’s disgruntled former employee, in November 2022.

On November 1, Sameer Ahuja (38), his wife Shalu (35) and their domestic help Sapna (33) were found murdered at their four-storey house in west Delhi’s Hari Nagar.

The digital video recorder (DVR) of the CCTV cameras installed at the house was missing, and there were no eyewitnesses. “After committing the crime, the accused took off with the DVR,” an investigator had told HT at the time.

The DVR of the digital doorbell, however, was left untouched, and that provided police footage of the three accused entering the house, which helped identify and arrest them.

“Till a few years ago, CCTVs were not common outside residences, but as people became more conscious of their surroundings, they started installing them. They are an affordable way of securing your surroundings,” said a sub-inspector in Delhi Police who asked not to be named.

Now, the police first look for CCTV footage during any investigation -- from a snatching to a murder.

As a senior police officer told HT: “About 80-90% of the important cases are now solved with the help of CCTV footage. Under the Safe City project, we will install a significant number of CCTVs at key points,” he said.

.As of now, Delhi’s streets are dotted with 2,46,424 CCTVs installed by the state government, as stated by the public works department (PWD) before the Delhi Assembly on December 15 last year; over 10,000 CCTV and automatic number plate recognition cameras installed by the Delhi police; and an unaccounted number of CCTVs put up outside homes, malls, hospitals, and shops by residents of the city.

By the end of 2024, the number of CCTVs installed by the state government will go up from 2.4 lakh to 2.8 lakh as mentioned by the Delhi government in their outcome budget.

According to a May 2023 study by Comparitech, a pro-consumer website, Delhi is one of the top 10 most surveilled cities, outside of Chinese cities, in the world, based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people. The top 10 list includes Hyderabad, Indore, Singapore, Moscow, Baghdad, and London, among others. The report states that there are 19.96 cameras per 1,000 people in Delhi.

“We found little correlation between the number of public CCTV cameras and crime or safety,” read the report.

Sneha Visakha, a legal researcher and doctoral student at the department of Anthropology at the Brandeis University in the US said that CCTVs cannot and do not prevent crime because a social problem cannot be solved by a technical solution.

“The function of CCTVs is ex post facto. They only help after a crime is committed. To say that installing more CCTVs will make the city safer is a flawed argument. To make a city safer for women, women’s freedom and autonomy must be strengthened,” she said.

The footage of this reporter that afternoon was recorded by a neighbour’s CCTV. “We did this for security reasons. Our twin daughters are four years old, and we want to be aware of who enters and exits the building,” said the 34-year-old neighbour, who asked not to be named.

The neighbour said that they bought a Hawkvision CCTV for ₹35,000. “It’s costlier than other available options as it has better storage, and we can watch the feed on our phones,” added the neighbour.

And it has already come in useful. “A two-wheeler, parked outside a house adjacent to ours, was stolen, and the act got caught on our CCTV. It helped police identify the suspect,” the neighbour said.

That’s how pervasive CCTV coverage is. In a bid to establish this more, this writer tracked herself across different parts of the city from afternoon to night on the same December day.

Location: Rajouri Garden Time: 3.03pm Footage accessed from a car retail showroom

At 3.03pm, this reporter was at Rajouri Garden police station meeting a police officer regarding another story. There is a CCTV camera installed right outside the police station, but its feed is not accessible to people. “If a survivor of sexual assault enters the police station, it’s captured in the camera like everything else. We cannot share feed with people as this will reveal the identity of the survivor. Access to the feed from CCTVs installed inside and outside police stations is only with police,” a second Delhi Police officer explained, asking not to be named.

But there is a car retail showroom across the road from the police station with a CCTV installed, and its managers shared the footage with HT after the police said it was alright to do so. The reporter can be seen clearly – this time with a blue jacket on – walking on the road, as vehicles whizz past her. The showroom does not share CCTV footage with the general public. “We have installed two cameras outside the showroom solely for the purpose of security. We do not share the footage with anyone except investigating agencies when asked,” an employee told HT, asking not to be named.

The CCTVs were installed in 2021. “The showroom is on the main road and there are many high-end cars we sell, so we need to be careful,” the employee added.

Location: Rajender Nagar Time: 4.04pm Footage accessed from restaurant

Once the meeting with the police officer was over, this reporter headed to a restaurant in Rajender Nagar, 7 km away from Rajouri Garden police station, for a quick meal.

In the footage, the reporter can be seen waiting to place her order as other customers (who are not visible in the footage) place theirs. At 4.20 pm, this reporter can be seen waiting for her lunch to be packed. Upon request, the restaurant owner shared three clips with the reporter, in which she can be seen clearly.

“I installed this in 2022 and spent ₹5,000 on it. There was a theft in my shop, and I had lost ₹10,000. After that, I bought this camera. I feel secure with it,” he said, asking not to be named.

Location: HT building, Kasturba Gandhi Marg Time: 5.31pm Footage accessed from the HT building

Around 5.30pm, this reporter reaches her workplace, located on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, and at least 6.6km away from the restaurant in Rajender Nagar. There are at least 40 cameras installed inside and outside the HT building. One clip shows the writer entering the gate and having her bag checked. She can be seen conversing with one of the three security guards.

Location: HT Building, Kasturba Gandhi Marg Time: 8.32pm Footage accessed from HT Building

The administration department shared three clips with this writer on request (in the interests of privacy, footage is usually only shared with law enforcement agencies; however, this was shared with the reporter on request). In one, the reporter can be seen walking down a flight of stairs; in the other two she can be seen exiting the premises.

Location: The colony in west Delhi Time: 10.41pm Footage accessed from neighbour

At 10.41 pm, the reporter can be seen getting out of her car, parked a few metres away from the main door of the house, on the neighbour’s camera. A few seconds later, a man holding a baby can be seen coming out of the house. He walks towards the reporter, who is still near her car. They talk for a few seconds, and then he hands her the baby, and she walks towards the main door and into the house, while the man can be seen entering the car.

For this exercise, HT relied on CCTV footage shared by private individuals and business owners, as the public has no access to CCTVs installed by police or the state government. According to a state government official, around 10% of the CCTVs in the city – installed by the Delhi government – are non-functional.

“As investigators, we cannot just rely on CCTV footage, but it is the first clue we look for,” said the Delhi police sub-inspector cited in the first instance.

Another Delhi Police officer said that in case of public cameras installed in streets or on poles, the footage is available on the cloud, and accessible when a password is provided; the local PWD office has the password, he said.

In the recent past itself, CCTV footage has helped police detect horrific crimes – from the grisly murder of a 16-year-old girl in Delhi’s Shahbad Dairy, caught on CCTV, on May 28 last year to the horrific death of 20-year-old Anjali under a car in outer Delhi’s Kanjhawala on January 1, 2023, morning. Footage of the offending vehicle – a grey Baleno car – caught on two CCTVs in the area helped police arrest the four accused.