Stockholm: A shopkeeper who handed police
video footage of the Stockholm suicide bombing says he will
think twice before helping authorities again after being
ordered to dismantle his security cameras for lacking the
right permit.
Naresh Lakhwani owns a watch store in the downtown
shopping district where the bomber blew himself up and injured
two people on Dec 11.
Lakhwani said today that security cameras he had
installed outside the store caught the bomber on tape before
the explosion and he didn't hesitate to hand it over to
police.
"I have pretty much the whole sequence of events on
there, with the bomber running up and down the street,"
Lakhwani said.
He said investigators were grateful for the tape, but
that didn't stop the County Administrative Board, which
handles permits for security cameras, to take action.
A legal expert at the board, Cecilia Forssell, said it
had ordered Lakhwani to remove the equipment after receiving
several complaints from people who had seen his surveillance
video in Swedish media.
She said no one is questioning his decision to hand over
the material to police, but the placement of the four cameras
on a busy pedestrian street.
"This location is sensitive in terms of integrity,"
Forssell said.
Lakhwani said he installed the cameras after his shop was
burglarized and that he wasn't sure he would volunteer to hand
over tapes to authorities in the future.
"I think they could have handled this a bit differently,
turn a blind eye a little bit," he said.
Swedish security service spokeswoman Carolina Ekeus
declined to comment on Lakhwani's footage.
Police suspect the bomber, Taimour Abdulwahab, set off
the explosives accidentally. They believe he had planned to
detonate them in a place where they would inflict more damage.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 00:00