Haryana seeks Mahila battalion to deal with women agitators

Haryana today asked the Centre to sanction an India Reserve Mahila Battalion to deal with women agitators and also sought financial and technical support for modernisation of the state's police force.
Speaking at the 11th meeting of the Inter-State Council chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held after 10 years, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar sought funds to purchase equipment for regional forensic science laboratories.
He said the state government has adopted a transparent policy for the recruitment of constables and inspectors, and the processes for hiring 5,000 general-duty male constables, 1,000 constables under the ex-servicemen category and 1,000 women constables were underway.

As a result of this, he said, the percentage of women in police would increase from six to eight and thereafter, within a year, "we shall increase this percentage to ten."
The state government has set up women police stations at all district-headquarters. Women complainants were now more comfortable in narrating their grievances before lady cops and majority of them want their problems enquired into at women police stations.
"Encouraged by the response, we have recently taken a decision to open help desks at all police stations at the sub-division level to expand their reach," he said.

"The central government may consider sanctioning India Reserve Mahila Battalion for law-and-order duties in Haryana," Khattar said, adding that Haryana has faced a lot of protests, which included women agitators, due to its proximity to the national capital.

Referring to cybercrimes, he said the state was in the process of establishing a state-level cyber-crime branch in Gurgaon which will have specially-trained experts to crack such cases and thus the need to substantially increase the central allocation under modernisation of police force scheme.
Police housing should be re-included as one of the
components while allocating funds under the MPF scheme, the chief minister said.
"I request the central government to provide funds to purchase equipment for these regional forensic science laboratories," he said.
He also sought technical and financial support from the Centre for police modernisation in Gurgaon and Faridabad.

The state government is preparing a thematic scheme for the next three years that is 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 and soon this would be sent to the central government.
Haryana government had notified the Haryana Police Act on June 2, 2008 for amendment and consolidation of law concerning management. This Act focuses on six distinct directions given by the Supreme Court. "We are analysing the Model Police Bill, 2015 to present our views to the Central Government," he said.
Khattar said the state was in the process of strengthening its intelligence machinery down to the grass-roots level.