ATS ropes in foreign firm to enhance CCTV images

Maharashtra ATS, probing the July 13 serial blasts, is taking the assistance of a foreign firm to enhance quality of the CCTV footages recorded at the three locations, a senior police official said. The volume of these footages, which are playing a crucial role in helping investigators trace the sequence of events that led to the blasts, is huge and many of the images are not clear.

“There was a need to enhance the images. We are taking help of technical experts of a foreign-based firm for this job,” a police official said.

The investigators had also found a photograph of an unidentified person at one of the locations in the CCTV footages and through enhanced image, the face of the person can be easily seen, the official said. Nineteen people were killed and over 130 injured in the three blasts last Wednesday.

The Maharashtra ATS also requested media organisations not to publish, display or telecast any CCTV footage or coverage of the Mumbai serial blasts to protect the identity of the witnesses.

The appeal came in the wake of some news channels on Monday telecasting a CCTV footage of one of the blast sites.

“This is an earnest plea to the media not to publish, display or telecast any CCTV footage of the bomb blast incidents, which is unfortunately being presently telecast on certain TV channels,” ATS chief Rakesh Maria said in a release here tonight.