More women personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CPRF) will be deployed for anti-Maoist operations, as a survey has revealed that there are fewer complaints of rights violations wherever women personnel have been pressed into service.
This was stated by Aruna M. Bahuguna, Director, National Police Academy, Hyderabad, while making a presentation on the findings of the study, ‘Acceptance of Women in Police in Society,’ at the Sixth National Conference of Women in Police, which began here on Wednesday.
She said the feedback from the areas where women CRPF personnel were deployed for anti-naxal operations was that there was a perceptible change in the behaviour of men.
The survey also revealed that people from both urban and rural areas wanted more and more women engaged in anti-Maoist operations, as they felt that women personnel were well mannered, and there were fewer complaints of rights violations from the areas where women personnel had been deployed.
The sample size of the survey was 322, covering Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
Inaugurating the three-day conference, Assam Governor Janaki Ballav Patnaik called for increasing the number of women in police forces in the country from 4-5 per cent to at least 30 per cent so as to “meaningfully address the issues of protection of women’s right and safety and fair treatment to victims or witnesses.”
Ranjan Gupta, Director-General, Bureau of Police Research and Development; Assam Director-General of Police Khagen Sharma; and Kanwaljit Deol, Director-General (Investigation), National Human Rights Commission, spoke.
