Home Minister G. Parameshwara on Wednesday said that the State government plans to increase the share of women in Karnataka State Police from the existing 8% to 25% in due course.
Addressing a seminar on ‘violence against women’, Dr. Parameshwara said that the government is committed to ensure safety of women and has sanctioned six women police stations across the city taking their number to eight. To provide assistance to the aggrieved visitors, two women counsellors have been appointed at each of these police stations, he added. The department should ensure that all women police stations are headed by a woman officer but due to shortage of women officers many station do not have such facilities. However, this will be corrected in the coming days, he said.
Elaborating on the measures taken to ensure the safety of women under Safe City Project, Dr. Parameshwara said that the aim is to make Bengaluru a safe city where 7,500 CCTV cameras, 280 Hoysala vehicles, and the entire city police force work round the clock to ensure the safety and maintain law and order. The 112 response system developed on a par with the London Metropolitan Police model started with a response time of 20 minutes and has now improved to seven minutes, he added.
The Home Minister said that the government was also working on a scheme to provide housing facilities for acid attack victims and help their children get educated.
As many as 20 women participants raised their concerns ranging from creating gender sensitivity among the police personnel to getting required legal support and dedicated advocates to fight their cases.
A woman complained that she was running from pillar to post to get justice for her minor daughter who is a rape victim. She said that the her daughter was being threatened by the perpetrators and the jurisdictional Begur police had refused to be of any help. She said her daughter was not going to school because of this for the past year. Dr. Parameshwara said that they would not only help the victim and her family, but would initiate action against officials who hadn’t come to the rescue of the victim.
Another women complained about the indifference of the Hoskote police while handling a case of a womn assaulted by her husband and being dumped in the well. The accused, who works in the Forest Department, was being supported by the police and despite assault and attempt to murder charges, the police refused to register FIR and take legal action against the accused, the woman alleged.
Many women voiced their concerns that dowry harassment section 498A cases had become “toothless” and the police refused to take legal action and arrest citing new guidelines. “Counselling has become the norm for all the domestic violence as victims advised to “adjust” , another women participant said.
