People's Democracy

STATE OF NATION’S CAPITAL

Women’s Safety Environment Deteriorates

DELHI, the nation’s capital city, is today witnessing increasing incidents of crime against women and a fast deteriorating law and order situation. The recent gang rape in Delhi University and the rape of an 85 years old woman in another part of Delhi merely serve to highlight this phenomenon. Either in the streets or within homes, women in Delhi have to cope with crimes of various kinds. These include sexual assaults like rape, molestation and eve teasing as well as other forms of violence like domestic violence, dowry related violence, etc. Statistics show that the highest number of rape cases are recorded in Delhi. Till July 2002, Delhi recorded 299 cases of rape and is far ahead of even Mumbai that is second on the list.

This was what a memorandum recently submitted by the Janwadi Mahila Samiti (JMS) to the police commissioner of Delhi says. The JMS is an affiliate of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). According to the memorandum, what is even more horrifying is the fact that more than 50 per cent of the rape victims were less than 16 years of age and 8 per cent of the cases were gang rapes.

It has also been reported that 86 per cent women in Delhi feel unsafe. In fact, sexual harassment on the roads in Delhi has reached at all-time high. On August 25, The Times of India reported an incident that also highlighted the extremely unsafe conditions prevailing on the Delhi roads. Four drunken men tried to force a woman to stop her car, barely a furlong away from the police headquarters. The woman escaped unhurt only because, finally, a crowd managed to catch hold of these men.

According to the JMS, what is of great concern and regret is that the police, whom this woman kept on calling on her mobile phone, took 40 minutes to reach the site of the crime. In the gang rape case in Delhi University, no action was taken against the constable involved. Seeking to impress upon the authorities the urgency of the matter, the JMS said it has received several complaints against the police about such cases.

Doing some plain talking, the JMS summed up its experience about the police force in cases of violence against women. The organisation has come to the conclusion that the police force does not handle such cases properly from the very beginning. Some of the problems in regard to such mishandling are:

1) The police do not respond in time.

2) Even when they arrive on the scene, they are not sympathetic and try to underplay what the women victims say.

3) They have a very rough and rude way of dealing with women.

4) They often try to dissuade a woman from filing a complaint.

5) As far as possible, they do not record a first information report (FIR).

6) They do not collect the evidence on the spot.

7) They do not take a statement from the other witnesses present on the spot.

8) They also show gender bias and their proneness to corruption by openly siding with the men. Sometimes they register false cases against the women. Overall, they investigate a case in such a way that their investigation leads to no conviction.

Asking the Delhi police commissioner to take the matter extremely seriously and take concrete steps to make the law and order better for women in Delhi, the JMS has made some short-term suggestions in this regard:

a) Specific guidelines must be issued to all police stations in Delhi, detailing how they must respond to the cases concerning violence against women. The guidelines must begin by highlighting the concern and complaints the citizens in general and women in particular have against the police. These guidelines must be drawn up in consultation with women’s organisations.

b) Only police personnel of a certain rank, e g SI, must deal such cases.

c) Police personnel must promptly attend any such case and a time limit for the response must be set. They must record the victims’ statements correctly and in presence of the victims’ relatives and other witnesses. The witnesses must also attest that a statement has been properly recorded, without police interference.

d) All police stations must have women police personnel.

e) All police personnel, particularly those who deal with cases of violence against women, must be properly trained and gender-sensitised

f) The fact is that all the cases of sexual harassment including eve teasing, molestation and rape are cognisable offences under the Indian Penal Code. Hence the offenders must be arrested and investigation started immediately.

g) If a woman needs any medical and counseling help, including help to deal with the emotional and mental trauma she has undergone, it must be immediately provided. All police stations must keep a list of doctors and counselors who can be sent for in such a case.

h) The police must encourage members of the community to come forward and give help and information in such cases. This can be done through suitable incentives.

i) The police must inform all the doctors in government and other hospitals that they must immediate attend to the legal cases in their absence.

In sum, the JMS gave voice to its feeling that unless the police force takes up the issue on a priority basis and introduces drastic changes in the way of handling such cases as well as in the police personnel’s behaviour and conduct, women are not going to get justice in Delhi.