Ganesh Chaturthi: Mumbai cops to shame offenders, eve-teasers

Mumbai: The Mumbai police is taking special measures to keep this year’s Ganeshotsav free of incidents of molestation, eve-teasing and other sex offences. Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria said that four major steps would be taken during the 10-day Ganpati festival, including cracking down on sex offenders and eve-teasers.

The Mumbai police has decided to humiliate eve-teasers by having constables and citizens take videos of eve-teasing incidents and show them to the parents of eve-teasers. Maria said he got the idea from north region of Mumbai police that started doing the same sometime ago.

North region’s additional commissioner, Kishore Jadhav, said, “On Tuesday we booked 25 youngsters for eve-teasing. Through mahila (ladies) committees we get to know where eve teasing takes place. When we get complaints from girls and women, we take down the information and either ask them to record or click pictures of the accused or we send constables to do the same.”

“We then call up their parents or ask them to come to the police station where we show them the clips. Under a provision of the Bombay Police Act we give them a warning and allow them to go. However, if the accused repeats the offence, we will book them,” added Jadhav.

Further, special squads will be formed where police personnel will move around in crowded places during the festival period to catch eve-teasers red-handed.

Also, a separate register is being maintained in each police station on offenders arrested for rapes and molestations. “Preventive action will be taken on serial offenders ahead of the festival, which includes preventive arrests and serving notices under the code of criminal procedure,” said DCP Dhananjay Kulkarni.

The second step will be to ensure “Mumbai streets are free of drug peddlers and drug addicts”, as Mr Maria said he believes many crimes were somewhere connected to drugs. The third step will be to crack the whip on young bikers who take to rash driving and other crimes. The last step would be having “visible police presence during the festival” to deter criminals.