Hyderabad: Public transport buses are becoming unsafe for women in the city with eve teasers harassing women during peak hours. It is the same situation across the city with the victims generally being college going young women and office goers.
Anitha Reddy, a private sector employee from Sanath Nagar says, “On one side of the door is the seating reserved for women while the other side from the door is reserved for men. Most of the times, when the men’s side of the bus is crowded, they troop over to the women's side and that’s when trouble starts.”
P. Devika, an employee with a call centre who has evening and night shifts says, “They sit on seats that are reserved for the women. Unfortunately, neither the bus drivers nor the conductors make any effort to see that they don’t step into our section. Sometimes they are drunk, specially during night time. Often when I return home late evening or early morning, I have faced unpleasant situations. Even if there are people in the bus travelling with you, nobody really makes any effort to safeguard the woman and we are often left to ourselves to figure out how to deal with the problem at hand.”
Another woman, Vishnupriya, a B.Com. second year student says, “The drivers of almost 90 per cent of the buses make sure that their buses are filled to the brim and more. Some men take advantage of this and harass women. When you object and try to tell the conductor, very often the conductor and driver scream back at us.”
Assistant commissioner of police for SHE Teams, D. Kavitha, remarks, “Our teams randomly get into buses during peak hours. This not only helps to keep a check on the misdoings in the buses, the eve teasers also realise that there might be a surprise check and if caught they could get into big trouble. This restrains their harassments to a great extent. However, this year we had two such cases of harassments that happened in buses and we have investigated the cases. In one case we did not find any proof. In the second case, evidence was found and we warned and counselled the accused.”
“We are also planning to hold an awareness programme for the bus conductors and the drivers of RTC on how to maintain conduct and discipline in public places for the security and safety of wom-en,” says Ms Kavitha.
