What steps can the police take to ensure safety for women in India? Senior IPS officer K Salim Ali shared his perspective on this matter with IBNLive readers.
Q. Dear sir, how would the police elicit the collaboration of the common man for this. What could be steps taken? Wont involving citizens and taking their support to work with the police be the best option to reduce such incidents. What are your thoughts sir? Asked by: Narayan
A. Crime against woman is an indication of the malady in the society. Hence, collaboration of the society with the police is one of the important tool to deal with this problem. Community policing wherein the policemen gets closer to the public and the society as such will go a long way in dealing with this problem. This method has been successfully tried in the State of Tripura wherein crime against women came down after implementing the community police programme in the name of 'Prayas'. The local wards, panchayats, responsible NGOs, women's commission, schools, colleges were be actively involved in the community policing. Hence, I strongly advocate implementation of a well planned and well thought systematic community policing programme focussed on crime against women. If need be motor vehicle accidents also can be targeted.
Q. Can recruiting more women in the Police force help? How can the police improve their image as a custodian of law and order? How independent is the department from a nexus between political and criminal goons? Asked by: Karthik
A. Yes, recruitment of more women in police force will go a long way in improving the image of police. Apart from this there is an urgent need to demilitarize police training and bring in more intellectual content like gender sensitization, psychological interview and interrogation techniques, scientific aid to investigation, systematic investigation protocols and yearly refresher training. Indian police is a part of Indian society. Police is not an island in the society and so it will definitely have the impact of what is happening in the society in its day to day work. The independence and the dependence of the police force purely depends upon the police head. If the police head is professionally sound with serving the people being foremost in his mind, the nexus will not have impact.
Q. Tell us the deficiency in police force and the moral of the force, the living style and eating style reflects on their jobs, we need to improve their attitude by total change, your comment. Asked by: dehiem
A. There is generally a certain accepted percentage of vacancies in all the departments of the government. This is generally due to accrual of vacancies, delay thereof in recruitment and further delay in inducting them after active training. But in police, the general vacancy hovers between 20 to 30% vacancies. Sometimes it so happens due to budgetary constraints recruitments are not held for years together accumulating the vacancies and aggravating the situation. The fundamental defect in the Indian police is the militarized training left by the British which needs to be moderated. Training of policemen is generally carried out by policemen we need to induct professionals in the various fields of theoretical training instead of policemen. Policemen also need to be trained on time management and eating habits, perhaps, that will go in long way improving the morale as well as working style. On the issue of attitudinal change we need professional training from bottom to top.
Q. The number of police personnel is less than half percent of overall population in any state/city? Do you think there is a shortage of police personnel? Asked by: Raja
A. There is a need to have a hard look on the police population ratio specially of metropolitan cities. Shortage of well trained police is common in all the third world countries. This also needs a hard look.
Q. When will our police wake up and defend the honour of our daughters? Asked by: Batatewala
A. I would like to remind you that in recent incident an ASI in uniform lost his life defending the honour of his daughter. Do we need better example than this? We policemen are also human beings, we also have daughters and sisters who move around in society without police security. Do we think that we are not worried about the emerging trends? Incident like rape happens in secluded private space which is difficult to police, hence, support of the community is essentially required to deal with this emerging serious problem.
Q. Thanks to the media and all the street protests, we can be sure that justice will be done to this case. But, none of these would prevent a recurrence of such an incident unless the boys, parents and girls realize the fact that the safety starts with self. Boys and Girls along with parents should prepare themselves to protect the self and do not leave it to chance. Even the best Governments in the world cannot appoint one police per person. We may have the best traffic system in the world and everyone might follow the traffic religiously. But, even then, can we afford to go blindfolded in the roads? No, we cannot. Asked by: Kris
A. I agree with this logical argument.
Q. Police must do patrolling in night. Asked by: sachin zore
A. This is the fundamental duty of a policeman. Night patrolling needs to be stepped up and supervision on night patrolling increased for effectiveness.
Q. When police will be take their irresponsibility like Europe and US? Indian police structure is very old and need lot of improvement. Asked by: Naresh
A. Given the wherewithal Indian police has performed fairly well in spite of all odds. One example is the assistance given by the police in conducting the general election of this country. Show me an example where police did not perform well during election. Perhaps, the working space given by Election Commission and the accountability the Election Commission insist upon makes them do better. The Indian police structure is left by British we need to completely change it after doing a proper, systematic and scientific study by social scientists instead of policemen themselves doing this.
Q. Mr Ali, don't you think that the political parties who are spending crores of rupees on dubious and propaganda election advertisements and looting our natural resources and tax reserve money are most directly responsible for all the sad things that are happening to this country. If they would have been honest, the surplus money could have improved the security of our women, girls and also every aam aadmi. Asked by: Nitish - Aam aadmi
A. I would like to point out that the malady in the present day society is due to its insensitivity to its surrounding and being self centered. There is a need for complete change in ethical ambience of the society instead of blaming others for the malady in the society.
Q. What steps can the police take to ensure safety for women in India? If Police don't know then its good for nothing. Asked by: Rajendra
A. This has been replied in my first answer.
Q. Is it fair to blame the police for all the crimes. They are understaffed/ overworked and a number of them are looking after VIP security.It is for us as citizens to be vigilant. Today our society has degraded to such an extent that we are so busy amongst ourselves that we rarely interact with out immediate neighbours and close our eyes and doors in case they are in danger. Don't you feel that we cannot expect the police to be omnipresent everywhere and is it not our responsibility as citizens to assist in crime prevention? Asked by: ARUN
A. I agree.
Q. Is there a link between income disparity, rising incomes in metros and crimes against women? Asked by: Raj
A. Crime against women is the problem of the society. Lesser the empowerment of women more the problem, perhaps, empowerment of women in its real sense can mitigate crime against women.
Q. How can technology help in preventing such crimes? Asked by: Ranjit
A. Perhaps, CCTV networking, micro UAV surveillance on vulnerable stretches, proper street lighting, visible night patrolling at vulnerable dark spots may prevent such crime to a certain extent. Improving technology to provide fast track, DNA reports in rape case where accused is not identified by the victim will also facilitate prosecution of the criminals.
Q. What does Bombay do which we can not do? Asked by: Kamal Agg
A. The women are perhaps more empowered in Mumbai. We need to follow that.
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