Anti-rape underwear, a fashionable vest that can jolt molesters out of their wits or a watch-like device fitted to give abusers an electric shock - students from various colleges and schools in the country are channeling their outrage and anger over sexual attacks on women in the country through several futuristic innovations.
Externally, it looks like a nightgown, ordinarily worn by women or teenage girls, but the garment is literally a power packed GPS and sensor-enabled device capable of temporarily incapacitating assaulters off their feet by triggering an 3800 kV electric shock at the press of button by the wearer.
"It was the pain of every women, which triggered the idea. All the more, it was hatred against molesters and eve- teasers which led to this design," says Manisha Mohan the inventor of the "anti-rape underwear" and what she calls 'SHE' or Society Harnessing Equipment.
Apart from administering a powerful shock to the assaulter the garment is also devised to send an alert to the police when the sensors are activated.
Manisha, a student of Aeronautical Engineering, along with collaborators Niladri Basu and Rimpi Tripathy, students of Instrumentation and Control Engineering at Chennai's SRM University got together to build the device after the December 2012 horrific gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi.
Similarly, two fashion designing students of NIFT reworked a concept developed earlier in 2004 to create a 'anti-molestation' jacket, an innovation for which patent is awaited and subsequent commercial sale "hopefully" by 2014.
"We took the concept of a stun gun similar to the ones used by a policeman which can can discharge electricity up to 110 volt and catch a person off-guard. The principle is to momentarily shock the person into immobility with a low-voltage pulse delivered between two electrodes," says professor Noopur Anand who mentored Nishant Priya and Shahzad Ahmad, students of the Bachelor's program in technology to create two prototypes of the "anti-molestation" jacket.
The jacket bears no special appearance but has "special features".
"There were so many cases of molestation and rapes and that became the motivation for our graduation project. Guided by Noopur, the basic idea was hers and was taken from a similar concept done by NIFT students in 2004. The idea was to make a piece of clothing that will give the girl or the woman time to make a quick getaway if assaulted. It also should be wearable as well as washable," says Nishant Priya.
The duo took help from an engineer to fashion the self defence jackets - one in acrylic and another in trendy denim - with metal embroidery that can conduct 100 volts of shock to molesters when triggered by a button on the waistband of the wearer.
