VASCO
When masked intruders stormed into the Baina residence of distributor Sagar Nayak on November 18 and executed one of the most violent dacoities the port town has seen in years, Vasco reacted with shock. But beneath the fear, a second, sharper realisation followed swiftly — the city had once again walked into a major crime with its eyes shut.
For over 10 years, Vasco has functioned with a dead surveillance network. Fifty-two CCTV cameras installed at the city’s most strategic junctions have remained silent relics on electric poles, watching nothing, recording nothing, and deterring no one.
And when the Baina dacoity demanded quick digital tracking, Vasco offered the police a decade-old answer: no footage, no clue, no trail.
The Baina crime was not merely an attack on one family — it was a powerful reminder of how Vasco’s prolonged CCTV negligence has slowly emboldened criminal activity.
Crime has grown smarter
When investigators rushed out after the Baina attack, spreading across the internal roads, Swatantra Path, the port approach and the market spine, they were hoping for even one functioning municipal camera that could help them reconstruct the escape trail. A timestamp. A vehicle silhouette. A direction. A single image to anchor the investigation.
But the strategic locations where the suspects likely passed — the very points that were supposed to serve as Vasco’s digital checkpoints — yielded nothing.
It was a replay of every major crime probe in recent years, where police were forced to depend solely on private shop cameras, eyewitness recollections and manual road checks. In Baina’s case, with masked attackers and a swift getaway, this made the probe painfully difficult in its early hours.
CCTVs could have
changed Baina probe
Experts say that in such crimes, the first 60 minutes after the incident are critical.
“A functional CCTV grid through Vasco would have allowed police to monitor several clues: whether the attackers exited towards the city, out of the city, or the market; whether they used a two-wheeler or four-wheeler; whether they switched vehicles along the way; whether they moved towards Verna, Cortalim, Chicalim or the port area; and whether the same vehicle reappeared in earlier recordings, hinting at reconnaissance,” said a source.
“Even a partially clear frame — a number-plate digit, a dent, a helmet sticker — can turn an investigation. Criminals do not simply disappear; they pass through cameras.”
Except in Vasco, where cameras passively hang from poles like museum exhibits.
Vasco’s surveillance
has not evolved
Vasco is a port city with high footfall, transit population, migrant movement, a busy railway station, commercial hubs, and military-linked establishments. Every such urban ecosystem relies heavily on surveillance to keep crime in check.
But in Vasco, every year without CCTV has added another layer of boldness to those who know they will not be seen. Vehicle thefts, chain-snatching attempts, night-time break-ins, each of these investigations has featured the same obstacle: no municipal footage available.
The Baina incident only showed the city what has been brewing quietly for years — that Vasco is a perfect escape route for anyone looking to vanish.
Why the city paid a price
The defunct CCTV network is a 10-year story of neglect. In 2011, 52 CCTV cameras were installed under MPLAD funds at a cost of Rs 50 lakh. They were placed at strategic nodes: Swatantra Path, market roads, key junctions and port-linked arteries.
Within months, cameras began failing. Some were vandalised. Some disappeared.
Maintenance responsibility became a grey zone between MMC and the installing party.
MMC repeatedly cited lack of funds and requested support from DMA and CSR.
Not a single camera was revived across three MP tenures and multiple MMC chairpersons.
In September 2022, fresh proposals were discussed, but the network remains dead to this day.
The result is that Vasco has lived a decade without functional digital surveillance, depending solely on private cameras and manpower-heavy policing.
Vasco’s turning point
Cities across India have shown how surveillance reduces crime. Nagpur, Surat, Indore, Pune, Kochi — each of these cities transformed their safety profile with robust CCTV grids that police rely on daily. Crimes get solved faster, criminals avoid the spotlight, and residents feel safer.
Vasco, despite being a port city of national importance, has stayed trapped in the past.
The Baina dacoity is not just another crime story — it is a wake-up siren for a city that has allowed ten years of inactivity to weaken its security spine. The fear that spread through Baina that night should not be allowed to spread into Vasco’s future.
The choice is clear: Either Vasco restores its CCTV network, or it continues living with blind spots that criminals love.
CCTV cameras do not stop crimes by themselves, but they stop criminals from disappearing.
They give police the power of sight and they give citizens the assurance of safety. They give a city the confidence that darkness does not belong to criminals alone.
Baina proved what Vasco has refused to acknowledge for a decade — a city without cameras is a city without control.
The question now is whether Vasco wants its next crime scene to tell the same story — or whether it finally decides that the time to see, record and protect has arrived.
