Making the city safer for women night & day
State feels women cops will be more sensitised to the situation of a woman in distress. Seven squads will be in action once the ribbon is cut by CM’s wife.
Here’s a ray of hope for women living in constant fear of being eve-teased, molested, mugged. All-women’s mobile police squads will soon be patrolling the city streets round-the-clock in an attempt to make Bangalore a safer place for women. Predictably, the colour pink will be prominently displayed on their vehicles.
“This is going to be one such initiative which will make Bangalore safer and more secure for women,” a source in the police department said.
The squad is the latest in a line of initiatives through which the government is addressing women’s safety issues following the gangrape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old in Delhi, and prior to that the gangrape of a law student in the city itself. The earlier measures announced included sensitising women in public areas and starting a women’s helpline.
The decision was taken at a recent meeting between the state home minister and police top brass, including the city police commissioner, additional commissioner and others, and was promptly implemented. All that it needs for the vehicles to be flagged off is a date from the chief minister’s wife, who is now in Hubli.
However, the success of the initiative will depend on numbers. Of the 699 sub-inspectors in the city, only 34 are women. And of the 8,942 constables, only 755 are women. And the police department plans to make do with the existing numbers.
There will be seven all-women’s squad, along the lines of the Hoysala (mobile patrolling police vehicles) and Cheetah (two-wheeler patrolling vehicles). The police department is yet to zero in on a name for the women’s squad, but they have decided that the women squad vehicles will sport the colour pink to distinguish themselves from other patrol vans.
Each squad, headed by an officer of the rank of sub-inspector and comprising six women cops, will patrol one of the seven police divisions – east, west, north, south, central, south-east and north-east zones. Their vehicles will routinely patrol isolated areas frequented by women, such as temples, parks, market areas, commercial establishments and pick-up and drop-off points of IT firms. The squads will swing into action during any emergency, and will also address issues like chain-snatching in which women are usually the victims.
“As women are soft targets, they will feel safer once the vehicles are on the road. We hope all these measures will help make Bangalore safer,” a police official said.
5 policewomen per station
Another proposal is to have five women police personnel manning each of the 906 stations in the state. But for that the number of women in the state police force has to be at least 4,530 as gainst the present 3,826.
