Police personnel during a cordon and search operation in Hyderabad.
| Photo Credit: File photo
The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has written to Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, objecting to certain policing and surveillance practices and demanded an immediate halt to initiatives such as Mission Chabutra and cordon and search operations.
The SFLC, apart from recommending an immediate halt of these practices, also sought a thorough investigation into their legality, a review of the legal basis of data collection by police, ensure protection of citizens’ data, and hold police officers accountable for violation of law or misconduct.
Mission Chabutra, Romeo, the SFLC stated, began when police officer V Satyanarayana was Deputy Commissioner of Police of the South Zone. This, they recollected, was done to address concerns about reckless driving and other issues. “However, their implementation has far exceeded stated objectives, evolving into a tool for arbitrary detentions, harassment and surveillance. Following the Chabutra raids, the cordon and search operations conducted in the recent years have far exceeded the scope and intensity of the former operations.
Frisking people, dispersing crowd, stopping people who are accessing public spaces and recording their biometric data on TSCOP is a violation of the right to privacy, as well as those rights covered by Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitutio, said SFLC.
