Safe Cities in Bangladesh: A Technical Feasibility Study on Urban Surveillance for Crime and Terrorism Prevention

Reading Time: 5 minutes As Bangladesh faces rapid urbanisation and growing internal security challenges, the notion of a national Safe Cities programme has emerged as a topic of serious interest. While no such programme has been launched to date, this technical feasibility study explores the potential for implementing a Safe City framework in the country’s metropolitan regions. The objective is to assess whether such a system can be practically and ethically deployed in support of crime prevention and counter-terrorism, and if so, under what legal, operational, and financial conditions. Bangladesh’s urban centres are experiencing explosive population growth. Cities such as Dhaka, Chattogram and Khulna are increasingly burdened with traffic congestion, informal housing settlements, resource scarcity, and rising crime rates. Compounding these issues are sporadic episodes of radicalisation and the threat of violent extremism, which call for a more proactive, technology-enabled public safety strategy. Globally, Safe City systems are being adopted