Ensuring sensitive buildings protection: Peshawar gets special security system for Red Zone

PESHAWAR: The provincial capital on Monday got a command and control system to monitor security of the Red Zone through the latest technology and artificial intelligence.

The command and control center has been set up at the Central Police Office. Inspector General of Police Akhtar Hayat Khan and Corps Commander Peshawar Lieutenant General Hassan Azhar Hayat inaugurated the new center.

The IGP and other officers briefed the corps commander about the security mechanism in the Red Zone through artificial intelligence.

The new system has been introduced to avoid Peshawar Police Lines-like attacks and to ensure security of the sensitive buildings within the Red Zone.

It has been learnt that data of all the employees, residents and visitors to the Red Zone of the provincial capital is being uploaded to the new system to allow entry at checkpoints through artificial intelligence.

Apart from walk-through gates, turnstile gates, facial recognition cameras, tyre bursters, customized luggage scanners and intelligent visitor cards are being installed at the entrances to the Red Zone.

There are a large number of offices and places which are visited daily by thousands of common people for their official purposes.

The Red Zone houses the Police Lines, Civil Secretariat, Central Police Office, Governor’s House, Chief Minister’s House, Central Prison and many other key buildings.

The security of the zone was upgraded after the attack on the Malik Saad Shaheed Police Lines, the headquarters of the Peshawar police, on January 30. The security lapse had resulted in a huge loss to the police force.

According to senior police officials the machine at the checkpost will allow entry to anyone after facial recognition. The movement of any suspicious person will alert the system and the cops concerned.

The officials said this would end the old system of showing cards or other documents to the security personnel at the checkpoints. The system will become fully functional in a few weeks.