“The police just stopped me and took a snap [of me], I asked for the reason twice and they replied, simply like that,” K Prudhvi Raj, a corporate employee living in Hyderabad’s Attapur, told MediaNama. Raj was returning home from his night shift, and at 2:30 am on November 5, the police near his house in Mekalmandi took a picture of him and his vehicle without providing any reason. He told MediaNama that since the police’s response was “improper” he decided to tweet about the incident. “I also need an explanation on what basis these activities are done with a common man. Is this announced in public before the department does it?” he asked in his tweet. https://twitter.com/Kprudhviraj3/status/1191466949022109696 “Hopefully the data in their records will not be misutilised,” he said. Raj is not the only person whose picture has been taken by police in Hyderabad. Police in the city have been asking for the facial data and fingerprints of people who they think might be potential criminals. They are projecting this as a legitimate way to curb crime. We previously reported on one such instance from Falaknuma police station, and were told that “the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) even gives us [the police] the right to kill. Fingerprint is not that big an issue”. Since then, people have reported of this practise by the police in at least 6 different police station jurisdictions of Hyderabad. Reported instances have been from Falaknuma, Bhavaninagar, Chilkalguda, Banjara Hills, Asif Nagar and Chatrinaka…
