New Delhi: Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi on Saturday pitched for compulsory self-defence training for girls from the age of seven years even at the expense of saying "goodbye" to regular subjects so that she can be able to "hit back" if somebody dares to misbehave with her.
"I want to urge you all to start campaign to educate girl students in self defence. At the age of seven or so, every girl in school should be put through a compulsory self-defence training program which should continue till class 10," said Bassi.
By the time she is in class 10, she has undergone that self-defence training...While walking down the street if somebody, misbehaves, if she decides to hit back, she will be able to defend. If she doesn't hit back then that is separate issue, he said while speaking at an interactive session organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) on women safety.
"That (ability) has to be created among the girls by the time they become vulnerable. If you see the age group of women
who become victims, of rapes and molestation - of course you have kids of 4 and women of 70-80 - is from the age of 15-35. At 35, woman will still have physical capacity to defend herself if trained.
"All of you must campaign, that a girl when she reaches her class three, should have a compulsory self defense class even if we have to say goodbye to sociology or maybe even political science class. And by the time she is class 10, she is a black belt," the Delhi Police Commissioner said.
Bassi also said that the December 16 gangrape brought "increased attention" on crime against women and that "truthful" recording of incidents saw a rise of almost 500 per cent rise in offence against the fairer sex.
"One of the key takeaway from the December 16 gangrape was that cases were not registered due to reluctance on part of the victim and also at time on part of policemen. "Consequently, it was mandated by an amendment in the year 2013 and also after a lot of debate that if a woman comes to a police station, she will not be denied registration of an FIR if she reports a cognizable offence," said Bassi.
Then we found that crime against women started rising by almost 500 per cent. So we took a decision that if that is the case...we will go for truthful recording of crime. The result is in front of you, he said.
According to data compiled by police, while 706 case of rapes were reported in the city during 2012, the number more than doubled in 2013 to 1636. So far in the first six months of 2014, 984 cases of rape have been reported against 869 in the same period last year.
Bassi said that out of the 984 cases reported this year till June 30, 759 have been worked out. "Almost 71 per cent (546) of them were worked out within one week and almost 87 per cent of cases are solved within two weeks. Most of the cases I monitor myself and I keep on monitoring it till the time it is worked out," he said.
"When we try to find out if the person was known to the victim, we have seen that the rate is high. Forty five per cent of accused are friends while a similar number is that of relatives...Strangers are involved in less than 5-6 per cent of cases. Nearly 82 per cent rapes take place in house/premises," he said.
The total number of all IPC cases reported in Delhi till June 30 stands at 71,523 this year which is more than double of 33,797 cases reported in the same period last year.
Bassi attributed the rise in crime statistics to effective registration of cases.
Talking about other lessons of the December 16 gangrape, the Delhi Police Commissioner said that there has been increased attention on crime against women and it was realized that there was an extreme shortage of women police officers in the force."
At that time, there was total 1,044 vacancies for male constables, half of which, that is 522 were converted for the induction of female personnel. Similarly, a total of 376 vacancies have been created in the rank of sub-inspectors for women" Bassi said.
Bassi told the audience, most of whom were women, that every police station in the city now has a special women's help desk.
Talking about other measures taken to ensure women's security, Bassi said, earlier we used to have 40 lines on 100 number, but now we have 100 lines on the number. We have special women dedicated helpline number 1029 which has 10 lines on Saturday.
"We have also identified few routes where women travel at night hours, returning from BPOs or job. We have increased patrolling on these roads and we keep in touch with land lords and company personnel," he said.
Bassi also said that today there are women personnel in around 100 PCR vans.
"On an average, 201 persons are taken to hospital by us. There are 672 schools where PCR vans go and check. We receive 23,983 PCR calls everyday. For which our average response time is 5.95 minutes. In cases of crime against women it is 7.42 minutes per case as such incidents are usually reported from home or other places which are different from usual spots like roads," he said.
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