Report: CCTV network could deter terrorism

NEW DELHI, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- A report by India's Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses calls for the installation of surveillance cameras to prevent future terrorist bombings.

The report, released Thursday by the India-based think tank, says low-intensity terrorist bombings, such as the recent attacks in the cities of Ahmedabad and Bangalore, will continue because of their low cost and ease of execution. The IDSA report says a randomized installation of closed-circuit security cameras could effectively deter future low-intensity bombings.

The report's author, Prakash Singh, a visiting scholar at the IDSA, says the terrorists who committed the attacks in Ahmedabad and Bangalore remain faceless. Singh's report suggests that with a randomized CCTV network installation, the chances of a terrorist getting caught increase, which also escalates the cost for terrorists planning low-intensity attacks while reducing the benefits of an attack.

"The only convincing way of dealing with terrorism of this nature is to increase a terrorist's risk of getting caught on camera," Singh writes in the report.

"This not only raises the costs of planning an attack but also makes the marginal cost curve steeper than before, as chances of getting caught increase exponentially."