In its bid to check eve-teasing, the Haryana Police has prepared a comprehensive plan, including identifying trouble spots, taking strict actions against mischievous elements and organising activities aimed at empowering women.
The police is also partnering with the youth through 'Youth Against Sexual Harassment' (YASH) initiative.
Through the initiative, the Haryana Police will encourage the youths to enrol with them and in turn become part of the campaign to prevent incidents of eve-teasing, an official said.
"We have put in place a comprehensive programme to stop eve-teasing. The hot spots have been identified. Work to sanitise them by way of warning and cautioning signages, CCTV cameras, plain cloth traps and time-aligned uniformed police patrolling is in progress.
"We are also collaborating with schools, colleges, parents, businesses, Panchayats, non-governmental organisations and other government departments to teach girls bravery and boys chivalry through public speaking workshops, adventure and endurance sports and self-defence training. We are very keen to team up with the youths (our natural allies in our fight for making public places safer for women)," Haryana Police's Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters), O P Singh told PTI here today.
Speaking about YASH initiative, Singh noted, "We aim to give young boys and girls a platform to voice their opposition to gender-based victimisation. They can make a difference by simply taking a pledge to resist it, speak against it on social media, wear a T-shirt condemning it, spread a word about the seriousness of the problem, organise events to create awareness, alert us about such outrage and so on.
He said DGP K P Singh had recently addressed Commissioners of Police and SPs through video conferencing for the implementation of the plan to prevent incidents of eve-teasing and crime against women.
"We will also encourage young boys and girls to enrol as volunteers by subscribing to our website mahilapolicestation.In. At the rate of 5,000 volunteers per district, we look forward to have some 1,10,000 volunteers onboard in next one month.
"They will be guiding our actions to weed out gender-based street violence, usually trivalised as eve-teasing. We will, in turn, train them through online tutorials to be 'change makers'," Singh said.
The ADGP said all women police stations of the state were functional at all district police headquarters as well as their extension centres in sub-divisions.
"Over 800 police officials with 130 vehicles work round-the-clock to prevent and detect crimes specific to women. Rolled out in August 2015, these police stations deliver ease of reporting, empathetic listening and prompt action for women victims. So far, the officials have disposed of over 53,000 inquiries and investigated around 4,000 cases," Singh added.
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