Make pepper spray available at low price: Police study

New Delhi, Sep 20 (PTI) Making small bottles of pepper spray available at a very low price is a "key strategy" for enhancing the security of the fairer sex proposed by a police- backed study, which found that markets and colleges are the places where the capital's women feel most insecure.

This and many other recommendations form part of the study "How secure or insecure are women in the city of Delhi" conducted by the National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Science for the police think-tank Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD).

"Every girl should carry pepper spray and it should be available in a small bottle at a very low price ... Easily available in the market," said the study, for which 70 women each were interviewed in markets, colleges, railway stations, malls, ISBT, airport, slums and villages.

The study recommends that women should always move in groups if possible and should carry contact numbers of women helpline and police besides having "some basic knowledge" of law.

About 80.40% of women interviewed at market places said they felt insecure at the place while the figure for colleges was 72.10 per cent. Shopping malls came third where 60 per cent of respondents said they felt insecurity.

Level of insecurity was lowest among slum dwellers (8.70 per cent) followed by respondents from village (22.8 per cent).

Personal facts like low level of confidence and alcoholic spouses made slum dwellers (80 per cent of the respondents) insecure, the study said.

I want to teach men what their mothers didn't

Shemin Joy

New Delhi, Aug 29 (PTI)

"I am here to teach men what their mothers didn't teach them," declared Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chaudhury at a function in New Delhi on Wednesday. Chaudhury has been at the receiving end of numerous hate mails after taking certain pro-women initiatives.

"Women are the worst sufferers of verbal and physical abuse and they need protection," said Chaudhury. She added that she got the distasteful mails after the recent implementation of the Domestic Violence (Prevention) Act.

Chaudhury was speaking at a function to award the ISO 9001:2000 certificate for Delhi Police's Parivartan, an initiative to combat voilence against women.

The choicest abuses used by men during altercations are based on women and their relationships with them, she said, adding that pro-women initiatives aimed at teaching men what their mothers have not taught them.

"People say pro-women legislations are often misused and abused. Yes, there is a handful of them, but one thing that we should keep in mind is that millions of women also need help," she said.

Many men were "upset" at the implementation of the Domestic Violence (Prevention) Act, claimed Chaudhury. "Gauging by the number of e-mails I have received and their content, I think I need the maximum security in the country," she added in a lighter vein.

"You see many things in Hindi movies. It is okay in movies but not in real life," she said. Men often assume that women have always played second fiddle to them and will continue to do so, she added.

"Can you think of life without women? Now, it is the era of feminisation of the globe and you see women everywhere. They lead the struggle for a decent livelihood," said Chaudhury.

"It is not that we don't want men. We need their help and they need to understand that women are not mere objects," she said.

Contact details of police stations a click away

Shemin Joy

New Delhi, Sep 04 (PTI)

Are you searching for the telephone number of the Rangpo police station in Sikkim or the residence number of the officer-in-charge of Kiltan police station in Lakshadweep?

The contact details of the police stations and officials across the country are now just a click away, the first time in the history of policing in the country.

The Bureau of Police Research and Development, government's police think-tank, has already uploaded contact details of police stations of six states and four Union territories on its website www.bprd.gov.in.

The postal address of police station with phone and fax numbers and residential phone numbers of station in-charges can be accessed through the Internet now, a senior BPRD official said.

It also has the contact details of offices of assistant police commissioners and deputy superintendents of police of respective areas. Some police stations have provided their e-mail IDs also.

The contact details of Andaman and Nicobar (20 police stations), Daman and Diu (2), Dadra Nagar Haveli (2), Delhi (116), Lakshadweep (9), Goa [Images] (24), Meghalaya (30), Mizoram (37), Sikkim (26) and Tripura (58) are provided in the site.

"This is a beginning to get police stations connected through the Internet which will improve connectivity and access and making policing in the country transparent," Kiran Bedi, BPRD director general, told PTI.

Bedi said BPRD envisages a scenario when all police stations across the country could be connected through e-mails where people can sent information to investigators and lodge complaints.

"We should develop a software such that a mail, which is a complaint or information, received at the police station is acknowledged automatically," Bedi said.

Incidents like refusal by officials to file FIRs on missing children and women in Uttar Pradesh's Nithari could have been avoided if there was a "fool-proof" mechanism to ensure accountability, she said.

"We should utilise available technology to plug the loopholes in the system and open it up," she said.
BPRD feels that providing contact details of police stations across the country would bring people and police together.

"We are now providing postal and telephone contacts. We are looking at a time of e-connectivity and e-interaction, a time when common people can come on a group chat and interact with the local Station House Officer," she said.

The BPRD is expected to provide contact details of police stations in the remaining states and union territories soon.