Rajasthan has constituted a unit of women constables who are responsible for patrolling the streets round the clock to curb eve-teasing and keep women safe. The project is still in its early stages and is currently operational only in Jaipur, the state’s capital.
Sanjay Aggarwal, Commissioner of Jaipur Police, said, “We intend to expand our women patrolling unit in other districts soon. The vision was to not only make our city’s public space safe, but also to give a bigger role to our women constables whose jobs are usually tied to the desk in the police force.” The unit constitutes of 26 scooties that are used for patrolling by 52 women constables who work in two shifts of six hours. The patrolling is done in areas that are prone to cases of eve teasing and harassment like colleges, commercial areas, shopping centres etc.
To augment its efficiency, Jaipur Police has also equipped itself with one of the most technologically advanced “Abhay Control and Command Centre” that helps in the surveillance of the city with 524 PTZ cameras at present.
Jaipur Police’s Control and Command Centre is the first-of-its-kind in the country and a year old now. There are six more such centres, one for each district, that are operational now. This Centre not only helps the local police in surveillance, but has also helped in gathering evidence in investigation. The system can also monitor social media.
Kamal Shekhawat, additional DCP, Jaipur Police, said, “During the protests against the movie Padmavat, we used the trending key words on social media to keep a track on activities of the protesters. The Social Media Monitoring also helps us fight cyber crime cases.”
Along with this, the Control and Command Centre is supported by a back-end call centre which is operated by a trained set of constabulary who take distress calls and immediately dispatch the nearest police officer on the beat to the location of incident.
Shekhawat said, “Because of our Control and Command Centre, our response duration has reduced from 11 minutes to 8-9 minutes.”
To ensure that female victims of violence seek required help, Jaipur has also put in place 15 Nirbhaya Centres that are being funded under the Nirbhaya Fund.
Jayshree, head of the Aparajita Centre, Jaipur, now under the Nirbhaya Fund, said, “Earlier, our centre was funded by the state government, but now, we are under the Nirbhaya Scheme. Currently, we are operating out of a small three room centre, but we soon intend to expand our premises and start construction. We have requested for the money and are awaiting clearance.”