Panel slams police on women safety

A parliamentary standing committee has come down heavily on the Delhi police on the issue of women’s safety, terming the existing trend “disheartening” and asked the force to chalk out an effective and resilient strategy to combat crime against women instead of “shrugging off” its responsibility.

The committee said it is “not convinced” with the plea of the ministry of home affairs regarding crimes against women that the role of the Delhi police is limited on the pretext that a number of socio-economic and criminogenic factors are responsible for prevalent attitude against women.

The committee, headed by Congress party’s Rajya Sabha MP P. Bhattacharya, also did not concur with the Union home ministry’ idea that the responsibility to prevent the crime against women lies with the society as the crimes against women are committed by people known to the victims.

“The committee, therefore, strongly recommends that the Delhi police instead of shrugging off its responsibilities towards preventing crimes against women must chalk out effective and resilient strategy to combat crimes against women,” said the report of the 189th standing committee on the Union home ministry tabled in Parliament on Monday.

The report took note of several steps taken by the Delhi police, which included no harassment of complainant or victims of sexual assault cases and having a round-the-clock women’s help desk and deploying 10 to 15 personnel in every police station to take care of women-related crimes. The committee also noted that the Delhi police took several steps post-December 16, 2012, to curb crimes against women, including instilling confidence in girls through various gender sensitisation programmes and propagating fear of law among sexual offenders.

“However, the incidents of crimes against women have a disheartening tre-nd, be it the incident of re-cent murder case in An-and Parbat (a woman stabbed to death by two youth) or alleged molestation of American citizen. The committee, therefore, feels that there is a need for sensitisation programmes on behaviour towards wo-men,” said the committee.

On a related issue, the Delhi police gave a graphical and statistical representation that majority of rapes amounting to 96.7 per cent were carried out by relatives and acquaintances of the victims and the remaining by strangers.