After spate of suicides, police mull 24x7 security on city highrises

Kolkata Police is planning to bring in a set of rules to check the spate of suicides from highrises in the city. The rules will include a mandatory security guard on the terrace round-the-clock and CCTVs in staircases and elevators.

Joint commissioner of police (crime) P K Ghosh said discussions were on regarding pros and cons of such measures.

The builder groups, however, said that manning the terrace 24 hours and installing CCTVs was not the solution.

Kumar Sankar Bagchi, MD of Bengal Peerless Housing Development Company, said, "This is not the answer. There is a tendency to hire an agency and depend on it blindly. The agencies hire men who only keep a record of visitors. The mindset of committing suicide is a disease. That has to be cured first."

He quipped that the security guard would be a lonely man on the terrace who himself might jump commit suicide. "Besides, there are cases when flat owners themselves jump to their deaths. How do you stop them from going to the terrace? Installation and maintenance costs will rise unnecessarily. To provide round-the-clock security, there has to be at least three people working in three shifts."

Shrachi boss Rahul Todi said that if someone wants to commit suicide, he or she will do it come what may. "There is no harm in more monitoring but CCTVs would only enable the guards to see if someone has accessed the place. How will it stop the person from jumping off the terrace?" he asked.

Many were of the opinion that installing CCTV was not a problem and it would possibly discourage outsiders, but how does one supervise the private areas of a building? "At most robbery and killing could be checked, but not suicide. We as builders have decided to install grills at every possible open place but definitely not in verandahs," said Akshay Pasari of Pasari Group.

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