The special patrolling vehicles of the Mumbai Police tasked with attending to crimes against women will soon have women drivers. The police have observed that complainants are reluctant to share details in the presence of male drivers.
One vehicle has been allotted to each of Mumbai Police’s 94 police stations in an initiative undertaken by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in 2015. The vehicles, operated by three women personnel and a male driver, are equipped with GPS locators to help respond to women in distress within 10 minutes.
Police officials said most complaints were related to eve-teasing and sexual harassment. A police officer said a 25-year-old woman had complained about being harassed by a local goon while on her way to college. A special patrolling vehicle was despatched to the spot and the women personnel tried to make the complainant comfortable in the vehicle before asking her about her grievance. The complainant, however, was uncomfortable sharing details in front of the male driver.
“After we analysed a number of such cases, we realised many women complainants had an issue with male drivers. So we requested our superiors to deploy female drivers,” a woman officer said. The police have now started training women drivers and 25 women have been deployed with to operete vehicles in the city. Mumbai Police Commissioner Datta Padsalgikar said, “We have decided to have an all-women staff to operate the patrolling vehicles and attend to distress calls from women.”
