Hyderabad: More women seek police help directly

HYDERABAD: The stigma among women to reach out to the police personally to lodge a complaint seems to be declining in the state. Police says that the massive awareness programmes among the women folk about their rights and also the confidence in the police about handling the cases are the prime reasons.
The statistics on the number of complaints through various complaining modes received by the SHE Teams since their inception shows the difference, says the police.

About 44 months ago, on October 24, SHE Teams were introduced in the state first at Hyderabad, and then at Cyberabad and Rachakonda police commissionerates, followed by the police districts. During the initial days of the SHE team, more women preferred complaining through social media, but these days more women are directly reaching out to the police at the police stations, which is almost three times the complaints received on social media, said SHE Teams in-charge Swati Lakra, inspector general (Law & Order) and Women Protection Cell.

The officer said that when SHE Teams were inducted into the city police force in 2014, more victims of eve-teasing and sexual harassment opted social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and E-mail to lodge complaints. Despite assurance from the police about their privacy, the victims expressed interest in raising their concern through the social media earlier.

The recent statistics with the newspaper shows that the number of complaints received directly (8,711) by the SHE Teams is more than that received through Dial 100, Facebook, WhatsApp, e-mail and Twitter (8,453). “As time passed, the confidence in the police to deal with their grievances increased. There is a substantial increase in the number of complaints where women directly walk into the SHE Teams office or a concerned police station. The hesitation to go to a police station is declining and the victims are feeling more safer,” said the IG.

Do campaigns really help in changing the attitude of the people involving in crimes against women in public places? Yes, says the Telangana police, who are claiming to have achieved a difference in injecting a sense of gender equality among the minors. However, there is no respite for women from the youths and middle-aged men, who trouble them with their misbehaviour.

Across the state, youths aged between 18 and 24 years and middle-aged persons in the 25 to 35 age group were the most caught by the SHE Teams in the last three years, followed by minors and then people aged between 36 and 50, and then those are above 50 years. In the three commissionerates of the Greater Hyderabad Region (Hyderabad, Cyberabad, and Rachakonda), about 406 minor boys were caught in public places for misbehaving with women. Across the state, the number is about 7.6 times more.

About 3,106 minor boys were caught across the state. The teams have caught 6,652 people aged between 18 and 24, and 2,181 people between the ages of 25 and 35. Those caught in the 36 to 50 age group are 814, and those caught above 50 are 77, according to the recent data of perpetrators caught by the SHE Teams personnel. From October 24, 2014 to October 24, 2016, the SHE Teams caught around 22 minors for various offences against women in public places; this grew to 363 at the end of 2017. After that, in the last eight months, only 43 juveniles were caught.

Responding to a query, inspector general (Law & Order and women protection cell), Swati Lakra said, “There were instances where 10's of minor boys were caught by the SHE Teams personnel for teasing and misbehaving with women in public places. Now, the numbers have come down as a result of the massive and continuous awareness campaigns by the teams' personnel at schools and colleges. We consider this as a reason that reduced the number of minors caught for harassing women.”