Former Pune police commissioner Amitabh Gupta. (File)
Pune Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta told indianexpress.com on Saturday that they have chalked out a master plan to ensure safety of women in the city.
Gupta’s reaction came after the deputy speaker of the state legislative council, Neelam Gorhe, directed Pune Police to take strict measures for ensuring the safety of women following the gruesome murder of a teenaged kabaddi player in Bibwewadi. The 14-year-old girl was assaulted several times by her 21-year-old stalker, who is also a close relative of the victim. Gorhe met the family members of the victim. The girl’s parents have demanded strictest punishment for the culprit.
Gorhe said she has issued a number of directives to the police commissioner to ensure justice to the victim. “The gruesome murder has shocked the entire city. The incident has once again highlighted the issue of safety of women and girls. I have, therefore, directed Pune Police to take necessary measures to ensure the safety of our womenfolk,” she said. Gorhe also directed police to take the case to a fast-track court in order to speed up the trial.
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Meanwhile, Gupta said, “We have already revived programmes like ‘Damini Squads’ and ‘Police Kaka’ to help women and girls in distress. These schemes were conceived a few years ago but were later discontinued. We are also in the process of reviving other schemes designed to enhance the safety of women.”
Police officials said the ‘Damini Squads’ were formed to curb crimes against women on city streets in 2015. Clad in ‘commando uniforms’ and comprising 33 women cops, named ‘Damini Marshals’, the squad had turned out to be an effective force in helping girls and women in distress.
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Under the ‘Police Kaka’ and ‘Police Didi’ schemes, Pune Police appointed a police constable in every school as nodal officer to look into allegations of harassment, ragging and molestation.
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The police chief said: “As colleges are restarting, we will start counselling of girl students. Similar exercises will also be undertaken in schools.”
He said their beat marshals had passed the area where the young kabbadi player was murdered on the day of her murder. “There are certain spots in the city which are patrolled by our beat marshals regularly. Unfortunately, the incident occurred after our beat marshals passed the area,” he said.
“If girls and women are being stalked, they should immediately contact our helpline number (1091). Even if they find that a person had stalked them once, they should immediately contact police so that we can initiate necessary action. Girls should not feel afraid of such stalkers and anti-social elements, the police are there to ensure their safety and security.”
State BJP women wing president Uma Khapre also met the police commissioner and demanded the setting up of a fast-track court to ensure timely justice to the victim’s family. “Police should also ensure security of the girls who will serve as witnesses in the case,” she said, adding that the MVA government should make stern laws to prevent crimes against women.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
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