Karnataka: Police-linked app for women's safety

Bengaluru: Safety of women in the City and the other districts in Karnataka is a major cause of concern and the new Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG&IGP), Rupak Kumar Dutta, is keen to ensure that women have a technologically-based foolproof safety network, which will be linked to the police on their mobile handsets.

It is reliably learnt that the State government has supported the new police chief’s initiative to make safety accessible and affordable to women using a simple app based technology, which will be linked to the police control room and has reportedly agreed to make a budgetary allocation for the App to be linked to the police network in the forthcoming Budget.

“The safety App is available on some handsets, but is not linked to the police. People normally have some favourite contacts on their Apps such as their relatives or friends, who they contact in an emergency. The DG&IGP wants the police to come into the picture to ensure safety and quick response to the victim,” said an official source.

“The App has to be integrated with the police control room so that in case of an emergency the woman can press the icon, which will immediately send an alert to the police control room from where the message will be relayed instantly to the nearest Abhaya or Hoyasala police patrol, which can rush to the help of the victim. This App using global positioning system (GPS) would help the police locate the victim without losing any time. While the App will be developed for women’s safety including those, who are victims of eve teasing and chain snatching, it can also be used to rescue accident victims and similar police response will be made available to them,” the source added.

The officer added that Home Minister G. Parameshwar is very keen on the project and has assured all support to launch the App. Karnataka will be the second state after Maharashtra to use police linked Apps for women’s safety.