I go to meet my friends
obviously these questions will not be
asked by a man I don’t want to answer
these questions either in fact I want to
question these questions and yesterday
these questions were being asked today
also they are being asked as a police
officer I do go to various forums in
order to speak regarding doing women’s
safety in one such forum a lady
principal of a school approached me and
she asked me why don’t you enforce on
women not to wear revealing clothes I
kept my calm I said why do you want to
put restrictions on women and she said
men are mad men are animals they don’t
have control over themselves well I said
put restrictions on the perpetrator why
put restrictions on the women the
criminal attitude and the gender-based
discrimination is directly related to
the patriarchal environment in the house
the biased mooring treatment to the
woman visibly the preferential treatment
to the man there is a need to replace
this patriarchal trait of subordination
subject
with qualitative value based education
right at the elementary and primary
levels of the school we talked about
Goddess Lakshmi goddess of wealth
Salvati goddess of wisdom their God
goddess of courage and strength they
have been worshiped in the Indian
civilization and culture since ancient
times this is an extreme form of
providing honor to the dignity of
womanhood on the contrary when we see
the kind of offenses that are taking
place against women our heads should bow
down in shame the problems of women
starts in the world and continue up to
the tomb my data with the system as an
11 year old girl I used to walk down
from my house to the bus stop to catch
the bus on the way they used to be this
boy on the cycle
he used to pass lewd comments drop his
books in front of me circle around me as
an 11 year old child I was traumatized I
asked my mother to please change the bus
stop my mother understood something is
wrong she asked me several times is
something troubling you is somebody
bothering you I just did not say
anything to her I denied all the time I
don’t know why I denied it probably I
didn’t want my parents to be upset it
was probably a very small issue right
now if you just think back but for an 11
year old child it was traumatic
traumatic enough that today
also I remember it very clearly and I’m
speaking about it in this platform I
dread to think what would happen what
happens to women who go through even
severe a kind of harassment I later went
for my graduation to Lady Shri Ram
College and of course I stayed in the
hostel there and it gave me an
opportunity actually to come out of my
cocoon of course the insecurities of
there was there were times when I was
coming back to the hostel and there were
vehicles following it was scary back
home my parents my parents were not
getting along very well with my close
relatives and they filed and complained
against them for illegal trespass and
theft the concerned police woman
inspector came to my father and she
spoke very rudely to him and insulted
him
I was extremely saddened by that and
that was probably my first brush with
the police not a very welcoming one
though and unfortunately for her
probably I got into the police I got
into the same kada I got posted in the
same place and she was underneath
I she did come back to me and she told
me sorry please do not do this to an
innocent person and probably I have also
learnt out of that experience myself as
an IPS officer I have worked in various
capacities in various places throughout
initially behalf and then after marriage
I came to Andhra Pradesh and worked in
various places in first while we andhra
pradesh then the state of Telangana was
formed the CMS Telangana he wanted to
make Hyderabad
like Singapore so he went to study the
progress of Singapore and the
authorities over there
they told him surely we’ll try and make
Hyderabad like Singapore but you’ll have
to answer one question William women be
able to come out at any time of the day
or night the way our women do and he
just did not have any answer to that he
came back to Telangana Hyderabad and
made a committee for the women’s safety
and security and there were certain is
senior IAS and IPS officers of which I
was also a part we studied the entire
various sectors sections of women in
Hyderabad their problems what exactly
are the problems which they are facing
and the most important things that
problems that they talk of spoke about
was problems regarding housement
in the public places and also in the
transport apart from of course domestic
violence we give our recommendations
after studying we gave our
recommendations to the CM
and he pointed to me and he said you
will be going to Hyderabad City and you
do something there for the women I’ll
suddenly felt that is it because of this
that I am an IPS officer I felt that
immediately I firmed the team’s
the XI teams we got each team consists
of five members mostly men with at least
one woman it is headed by a
sub-inspector and initially there is a
lot of preparation done for the teams
they have to be prepared they have to be
passionate about what they are doing it
was not a routine policing it’s not that
the police stations did not do this job
earlier but this was specifically meant
for women I told them one thing you go
back to your houses speak to your wives
speak to your sisters speak to your
daughters and find out how it feels when
they are harassed they did that they
came back all you know charged up that
yes man will do it for one week we gave
them all trainings gender sensitization
how women feel faced these problems and
the first day even I went we were all
charged up the well almost the entire
night we were you know searching we
didn’t get a single person and one came
back dejected said no worries
a lot of people next time again
of course the first case was also very
interesting we they saw one person kind
of troubling this girl in the bus stop
and she boarded the bus he boarded the
bus our team boarded the bus in the bus
he didn’t do anything
the girl got down this next to next step
the boy got down our team got down then
suddenly our team saw that he was trying
to shove a paper in to the girls hands
that is the time when they nabbed him
basically our team works on evidence we
believe in evidence they are in lofty
lofty as in they wear normal civil
clothes they are not in uniform like
this but they carry discreet cameras so
that whatever incident happens in front
of them is recorded for future evidence
we have to produce them before the
magistrates I tell them one thing please
do not I I never give them targets get
the right person but never get an
innocent person so we’re very careful
about who we get and not only that
slowly we started getting our phone
calls I mean we have given a low
platform for people to approach us we
have a Facebook page we have a whatsapp
for a number mobile application website
we have all this apart from that for
those people who do not have smartphones
we have one zero zero as the direct dial
number we we have been going along in
these lines and after some time apart
from these raids or these red catching
people red-handed
we got a complaints regarding phone call
and social media harassment too
we started working on that too there was
one incident in which a man he was
behaving like an educational consultant
he had taken the numbers phone numbers
and the names of girls from various
websites of the universities and he had
maintained 12 or 13 registers like this
you know he was having 20 wine mobile
phones almost the similar same number
SIM cards he had maintained registers
service provider wise so he didn’t have
to spend too much on calling also he was
calling all these girls and these were
innocent girls of probably intermediate
when intermediate students and as a as
an educational consultant he was talking
to them for a couple of months he used
to talk to them and then he used to call
them to his so-called office which was
located in a very isolated place and
there he used to sexually assault them
hundreds of victims were there for him
but we got only three complaints that to
our chance we came to know that all the
three victims accused was only one after
a lot of hard work we could trace that
fellow and we have caught him we had
booked him under serious sections of
Neriah Act also and we have also put a
period on insta Trussell by which he
will not come out on bail at least for
one year after that once he’s charged in
case he’s charged it will be rather
sentence we also have a Barossa Center
this is a this is different from the XI
teams
Peraza Center is for those it is an
integrated Support Centre for women and
children and this is basically for rape
children who face sexual abuse normally
when a rape rape happens the victim has
to undergo certain procedures she has to
be taken to the hospital for medical
examination she a 164 statement that is
the statement has to be recorded by the
magistrate a statement has to be
recorded by the police
she’s already in trauma and all these
procedures are also there which she has
to follow for the support of such
victims we have this Barroso Center it
can these this Center has these
counselors they have a legal adviser we
have a video conferencing facility so
that the woman does not have to go to
the court and feel revitalized again
people will look at her with that kind
of a stigma we want her to be
comfortable so in the confines and the
comforts of the parousia center she is
able to record the magistrate is able to
record her statement via the video
conferencing facility we have a nurse
and we ensure that the medical
examination is also done we have our
vehicle with us we take her and we bring
her back we have very good counselors
who counsel them after the rape also one
very concerning thing which we have seen
these days is the assault on children
and when I say children it is both boys
and girls it is very very it is a
concerning subject and I feel a lot
about it and I feel that parents should
also be as much sensitized about this
subject there has been after all these
initiatives a 20% reduction in the
offenses against women
80% of people in Hyderabad are today
aware of she teams and how to approach
the she teams and how to take help from
us five states across the country have
replicated she teams and it is also
functioning in various names she teams
has also been brought into the
curriculum of the Telangana state board
we just feel encouraged and that
encouragement helps us to be more
responsible and behave in a more
responsible manner because I feel that
that our responsibility goes up further
these are some of the activities which
we do we create legal awareness camps we
conduct legal awareness camps we conduct
self-defence classes we go to all the
colleges and schools across Hyderabad we
have covered more than 200 colleges and
hundreds of schools policing as such if
you see is more of a legacy of the
British it is more British used the
police for subjugation and for
subordination today that is not the case
we can no longer behave in that way we
have to change in the police and we have
we are changing in Hyderabad city police
all our police stations today are
getting renovated I am not only
infrastructurally the police personnel
inside the police stations are also
changing we are training them in soft
skills we are training them how to
receive petitioners and not only that
there is a third party there is a third
party PLP who we will ensure that they
are monitored they will call
up as far as any any of the randomly
they will pick up a petitioner and they
will call that person and ask how the
how the response was from the police
station and on that basis there ACRs the
their confidential reports are generated
we are also using technology for
ensuring our prevention investigation
and detection we are having CCTV cameras
across the city our target is 1 lakh
CCTV cameras across Hyderabad we have
already covered 30,000 and that is being
done through people’s public partnership
so definitely we we want that the public
please cannot be there everywhere we
have also launched a Hawkeye mobile
application which makes public citizens
police there are functions in that
whereby you can take a picture and send
it to us and we will do the rest
so we just want that even the citizens
be a part of our policing so that we can
have a better society it is seen that 15
to 20 percent of people behave
irresponsibly that is they are the
criminals what about those 75 to 80% of
people why do they have to just sit back
and do nothing about it it is time that
we all come together and do something
for the society if not anything at least
call 1 0-0 it is definitely not a
women’s issue alone we’ve seen that
several times every household has sister
a wife a daughter a mother everyone has
they say it’s about time that we all
come together and work towards having a
good Society I will end with a quote
from Albert Einstein he says that the
world will not be destroyed by those who
do evil but by those who watch them
without doing anything thank you [Music]