Police have drawn up a list of several stretches in Hastings, which are poorly lit making them crime-prone pockets, and have decided to request the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to install brighter lights immediately.
Stretches of St George’s Gate Road, Kidderpore Road, Lovers’ Lane and Napier Road adjoining Marine House have been identified as some of the stretches where lights are missing, officers have concluded.
The realisation comes within hours of a 30-year-old housewife complaining of alleged molestation by her app-cab driver with Hastings police station on Friday evening.
The woman, a resident of Howrah, alleged that the driver had stopped on St George’s Gate Road on his way to Howrah from Salt Lake and rolled up the glasses before outraging her modesty. She somehow managed to open the locked doors of the cab and run away with her sister before reaching the police station. The police have arrested Manoj Kumar, the accused driver, from Tollygunge Road.
A probe of the incident revealed that Kumar allegedly chose a spot near a chapel on St George’s Gate Road because it was desolate and dark. Since there is scant pedestrian movement in this part, Kumar had possibly picked up this spot, officers said.
“There are several spots in these areas that need immediate installation of lights. They have not been installed after the widespread devastation during Cyclone Amphan,” said a senior officer.
Kidderpore Road and Lovers’ Lane are two key thoroughfares skirting Maidan near Fort William, the headquarters of the Eastern command. Besides being dimly lit, some of these stretches are not covered adequately by CCTVs. Senior officers said key spots in and around Hastings would be brought under CCTV coverage soon.
Officers said the area around Princep Ghat and the HRBC Building remain most vulnerable at night when there aren’t many people around and only vehicles speed down. “Unless there is electronic surveillance it gets very difficult to detect a crime. Vehicles move at high speed at night,” the officer said.
Following an assessment of the condition of the area around Hastings in the wake of the molestation complaint, officers said they would ask the KMC to take up the illumination work immediately.
