EXCLUSIVE
(All exclusive news published herein is subject to copyright)
Shillong, May 23: The Eagle’s are watching — not the bird, but the East Khasi Hills Police’s “Eagle’s Eye” Unit.
Far above Shillong’s winding roads, crowded marketplaces and shadowy alleyways, silent machines hover in the dark, tracking movement below while hundreds of cameras stare endlessly at the city’s every pulse. Somewhere inside a police control room, screens flicker through endless footage — a suspicious figure crossing a junction, a motorcycle disappearing into a narrow lane, a procession swelling into chaos, a thief unaware that every step has already been captured.
In a city grappling with rising drug-linked crimes and thefts, the East Khasi Hills police have quietly built an invisible surveillance web stretching across Shillong, combining drones, analytics and more than 300 CCTV cameras into what officials describe as a technological force multiplier capable of cracking cases and monitoring law and order with a chilling bird’s-eye precision.
What appears ordinary on the streets is now constantly being watched from above.
In an exclusive interview to Meghalaya News 24, East Khasi Hills Superintendent of Police Vivek Syiem said the district police are deeply integrated into Shillong’s Smart City surveillance network and the Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), where footage from across the city is continuously monitored and mapped.
“We are the stakeholders of the smart City project, we are also part of the ICCC project, so there are over 300 CCTV cameras installed all over the Shillong city over 30 locations. There is a rising crime against properties for various reasons and reason is Drug addiction. CCTV are being mapped,” he said.
At the centre of this digital surveillance network is a specialised monitoring cell operating from the office of the Superintendent of Police, East Khasi Hills — a unit investigators say has transformed the way crimes are tracked and solved in the hill city.
“There is a cell in the office of Superintendent of Police East Khasi Hills which is called the Egale ‘s Eye which maps the CCTVs in the Shillong city for any crime and helps to crack the case. Further the Egale Eyes is not just the CCTV cameras but we also have drones. The drones moniter movement specially during any rally, procession, during traffic management, drones are used for any operations. The drones have multiple usages for the police,” he said.
The expanding use of drones marks a dramatic shift in policing strategy, allowing officers to scan tense situations from the sky, track crowd movement in real time and obtain aerial visuals during operations where ground visibility becomes difficult.
“The district right now we have two drones and we are planning to procure more high resolution drones. These are force multipliers for law and order to assist the police force in monitoring situation in getting the birds eye view of any situation,” he added.
Police officials said drone footage and CCTV analytics have already played a critical role in reconstructing crime scenes, identifying suspects and solving multiple criminal cases across Shillong, where traditional policing methods are increasingly being reinforced by digital surveillance technology.
“Drone by itself is a success story. So many cases, Eagle Eye unit of East Khasi Hills Police were able to solve many cases because of analytics revolving around footages Egale ‘s Eye unit work which helps to solve the cases,” the Superintendent of Police said.
As darkness falls over Shillong and traffic slowly fades through the mist-covered hills, the cameras remain awake, the drones remain ready and the Eagle’s Eye continues to watch silently from above.
