CCTVs to keep an eye on the Gardens
Rifat Jawaid in Calcutta
Cricket Association of Bengal president Jagmohan Dalmiya said on Thursday that the Eden Gardens, which will host the second India-Australia Test starting Sunday March 11, will have CCTVs installed in the stands to check crowd trouble.
Elaborating on the preventive measures put in place, Dalmiya said that the CCTVs would be adequate in number, and would be installed in key positions.
"We've had enough of crowd violence in the past, we think it is time we did something to check such violent activities inside the ground. How much longer can such misbehaviour be tolerated? Though the troublemakers are a couple of hundred in number, such incidents bring shame to all of Calcutta. Through CCTVs, we will be attempting to pinpoint those who indulge in violence, and take stern action against them.
"These TVs will start filming automatically at the first sign of trouble," Dalmiya said. "We will identify the troublemakers, and nab them before they leave the stadium."
Dalmiya said further that the Gardens would host a one day international between England and India, in course of the English tour later this year.
Though the press briefing was about security, it became a media issue with dotcom journalists and those representing TV channels complaining about shoddy, and blatantly partisan, distribution of media passes. TV reporters were outraged that they had not been given passes even for the post-match press briefings.
The issue of denial of passes to rediff.com cropped up, with this correspondent finding to his surprise that he was backed by the assembled TV journalists. One such journalist argued that the black-listing of rediff was a shame, and added, 'No other dotcoms have been covering cricket and other sports-related events with as much sincerity as rediff.com has been doing.'
The sudden emergence of this issue clearly embarassed Dalmiya. The former ICC chief said that he could not "appease everybody" and that there was a shortage of seats in the press gallery.
He added that the Calcutta Sports Journalists Club would look into the matter of rediff's complaint, and asked the CSJC bigwigs to "see if rediff and other electronic media journalists could be accommodated even for the post match press conferences."
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