In a first of its kind initiative by the Police Department to break the mental barrier that prevents women from going to police stations, all personnel in the State celebrated Women’s Day with their kin, including women and children, at their workplace, to start with.
The gathering of family members of personnel, including the station staff, Mahila Mitra members and Mahila Samrakshana secretaries at the 989 police stations in the State, marked the declaration of the police stations as women-friendly ones by Director General of Police D. Gautam Sawang.
Mr. Sawang made the declaration from the police headquarters which was was viewed by the thousands of women and children gathered at different stations via video link.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sawang urged the personnel to encourage women to feel free to walk into police stations to lodge a complaint or seek help when needed.
“The entry of all these women into the police stations today has shattered the myth that the police stations are a ‘no-go zone’ for women. Seeing their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers in the police stations leads to a change in the mindset of the personnel,” Mr. Sawang said.
Lively interaction
Mr. Sawang also interacted with the women on the occasion. During their interactions, many women said it was their first visit to police stations even though their kin (police officers) have been working there since long.
To make the police stations women-friendly, the State police devised 19 parameters which are divided into institutional, structural, environmental, behavioural and action-based, and all police stations will work towards fulfilling the parameters with special focus on gender-sensitive behaviour of the personnel, police officials say.
Additional DGP (L&O) Ravi Shankar Ayyanar, DIG Technical Services G. Pala Raju, IPS, Disha Special Officer Deepika Patil, IPS and AIG (Administration) Aishwarya Rastogi were among those who took part in the interaction.
