Chennai: Women welcome CCTVs but want more efforts

Chennai: While authorities have been trying their best to maintain law and order in the city and have installed more CCTV cameras across the city, women in the city still feel there is a lot that is required of authorities to achieve the target of zero crime rate in the context of crime against women across the country.

Jayashri Ramesh Sundaram, a young writer, shares her concern, “It is definitely a good move, but the question is - how are we going to address it? As somebody who travels a lot across the city, even at odd hours, I would like to see more policemen on the roads. I want them to be physically present. Most of all, police stations must be well lit and have a pleasant atmosphere. Many times, even if I have faced a problem and I am crossing a police station, I do not feel like entering it because of the number of times I was discouraged from doing so.  Once my sister lost her phone and we wanted to file a complaint. It was 11.30 at night. We went to the police station only to be asked why we were there at that time of night.”

There is a lot of moral policing around but no one encourages a woman to actually stand up for herself, go ahead and file a complaint, Jayashri signs off.

Echoing the same sentiment, Sharada Vijay, another woman from the writers' circle in the city, says, “As much as I applaud the attempt of every inch of the city under surveillance, I feel that creating awareness among people is the need of the hour. There won’t be a CCTV camera in the space between two individuals in a crowded bus. What if a man slides his hand into my pockets or tries to touch me inappropriately? The solution to reducing the crime rate, especially against women, starts with people being responsible citizens and of course self-aware. Men who rape chimpanzees do not really care about CCTV cameras.”

"Women need to stand up for themselves. They need to file complaints when they are violated. Only then  this installation of CCTV cameras will serve its purpose. The problem with us is that we do not want to go to the police station. We get shamed. Before expecting a man to stand by women, a woman should first stand by another. There are no CCTV cameras within the four walls of a bedroom. The husband should be able to understand that he cannot just get into the space of his wife. If she says no to intimacy one night, he should it take it as a ‘no’. Men need to understand that we are not their private properties.”

Ramya, a working professional at the Olympia Tech Park,  thinks that focus should be given on interior areas and subways and not just the main roads. Betsy Tabitha, a young advocate from Egmore,  is quite hopeful. She shares an incident, “Once my dad left his phone, probably in the auto he was travelling by. He realized it was missing after he got off. He only remembered having used it in the auto. We immediately went and checked the CCTV camera of our apartment. As it happens, the number plate was not clear in the footage. I wish CCTVs were there everywhere so that even the minutest details get captured. What is more important is for common citizens to have access to the footages. We can always file a complaint and want to access the footages. But it could be made easier -minus the hassle.”

Kavya, a marketing associate, who also happens to be a well-known public speaker in the city, points out," Increasing CCTV cameras is definitely a step further, but just setting up cameras won’t do. Maintenance of cameras and ensuring that footages are not tampered with are also important.”