Women cops in casuals to check eve-teasing

Chandigarh: To counter the growing menace of harassment of school and college girls on their way to educational institutions, the Haryana police is planning to deploy women constables in plain clothes.

Earlier, there were demands for opening up more school for girls in various places so that girls do not have to walk too far. The state government had even started all-girls school and college buses, but the problem still persists.

According to Haryana DGP B.S. Sandhu, the police plans to deal with the problem of eve-teasing by adopting a multi-pronged strategy.

“Now, we are going to involve panchayts and other local representatives along with the local police,” the DGP said.

The police claims to be working on a four-pron-ged strategy to curb the menace. The first step in this direction is installation of CCTVs at particular spots that make identification of habitual offenders easy, besides providing a psychological relief to the girls.

The second step is to put up warning signs for the offenders which spell out the sections of the IPC and the charges under which they can be hauled up.

The third step is to put up boards and hoardings providing information to women on whom to contact when facing the problem. These boards will have WhatsApp numbers and helpline numbers, besides Facebook and Twitter addresses of officials designated for the checking the menace.

The fourth step, being planned by the police, is to depute woman cops in plain clothes at the trouble spots. “This acts as a big deterrent and sends a strong signal when an eve-teaser is caught by a police personnel at a public spot. Our aim is to sanitise these trouble spots of this menace,” Mr Sandhu said.

Apart from these steps, the police is set to launch a youth-oriented progr-amme, titled Youth Aga-inst Sexual Harassment, to check the instances of sexual harassment.

Under this programme, the police will train 5,000 to 10,000 volunteers in every district of the state in reporting these insta-nces and taking forward the awareness against sexual harassment.

Many cases of girls being harassed on their way to school have reported from the rural areas.