A meeting called to discuss rural women's empowerment by the city's police commissioner was not attended by a single woman panchayat head, an official said Tuesday.
Alok Mittal, Gurgaon police commissioner, who had called the meeting of sarpanches from south Gurgaon, said that it was the collective duty of everyone to check crimes against the women and children.
It was attended by 20 sarpanches. Seven women panchayat heads were to attend, but they did not turn up.
"Till now, nearly eighty sarpanches have attended Mittal's awareness classes. Not one of them was a woman sarpanch," an official told IANS.
"Instead of women sarpanches, their husbands attend such meeting," she said.
Gurgaon has 210 elected village heads, out of it 70 are reserved for women.