VIJAYAWADA: Around one per cent of the Disha SOS calls received by the police are actionable with the remaining 99% of them dealing with test calls and false alerts, according to the latest data released by AP police.
However, the rate in which the FIRs are being registered amongst the actionable calls received through the Disha app stands almost on par with the age-old Dial 100 emergency service. The data shows that on a daily average, cops registered five to seven FIRs from the 50 to 60 actionable calls received from distressed women. Comparatively, the Dial 100 service receives 400 to 450 actionable calls from women daily out of which 10 FIRs are registered on average. Aasked about the disproportionate number of irrelevant calls, director-general of police D Gautam Sawang during his September 3 press conference explained that the majority of them happen to test calls from new downloaders.
‘First temptation for a user is to test the app’
“Right now, there is a campaign going on since July 29 and in the last two months the number of downloads has scaled up from 13 lakhs to almost 47 lakhs. So, the first temptation for any user is to test the application. However, we are being patient with these false or test calls but despite what we have achieved we still have to improve it a lot,” Sawang said.
Since the launch of the Disha app in February last year, around 3.15 lakh SOS requests were made. Out of these, 3,750 were actionable calls and 523 FIRs were registered out of them. Around 109 women were rescued from domestic violence in less 10 minutes in the last two months through the SOS requests. Most SOS calls were made from West Godavari district followed by Vizag, East Godavari, Chittoor and Vijayawada.
Out of the 523 FIRs registered, 25% are related to ‘outraging the modesty of a woman’. Around 19% are harassment by husbands, 12% pertaining to insulting, eight percent are petty cases. When it comes to sexual crimes, five percent of SOS calls pertain to offences against children while rape cases account for two percent.
