No policewoman to address your complaints at special help desks!

In a recent survey conducted by Millennium Post at various police stations in the city, it was found that in most of the police stations the chair infront of the women’s help desk is vacant.

The reporter spent almost two hours each at all the police stations and discovered that the women cop on duty mostly remained missing for more than an hour and a half. During the survey, it was also witnessed that if female complainants approached the police station seeking assistance, instead of being attended by a woman  cop, she is forced to encounter dominating, over-powering male staff in the police stations.

On Friday, when a female complainant with a domestic violence case reached Ambedkar Nagar police station, she could not locate any woman cop at the help desk. Further, when she approached the duty officer, who was busy attending calls on his mobile phone, denied to provide her a pen and paper and later began conversing in a completely impolite manner. 

For the cops, it might just look to be an everyday exercise of registering complaints and addressing issues of the people in general. But for the complainant, who had come to the police station terrified by unfathomable mental trauma, it was nothing less than a rude shock. As the policeman shouted at her, she burst into tears, unable to understand what wrong had she done by visiting the police station to register her complaint. 

Further, when the reporter intervened, a female cop who was assigned to be on duty at the women’s help desk appeared from nowhere in the police station. She then helped the complainant in filing her complaint. 

After the infamous 16 December gang-rape case in which a 23-year-old paramedic student who succumbed to her injuries, a special help desk meant for women complainants was set up at every police station in the national capital.

‘The purpose of setting up the help desk was to make the complainants comfortable while narrating their ordeal,’ Rajan Bhagat, PRO Delhi Police said.

Recently, BS Bassi, Delhi Police Commissioner said: ‘Now, every police station in the city has a special women’s help desk that encourage female victims to visit police stations and register their complaints. That is why, there is a rapid increase in the cases registered at the police stations these day.’

However, Delhi Police chief and other senior police officials failed to keep a check on the ground reality of the recent initiatives taken to make Delhi Police more friendly.