Women’s day gift from Ajit Pawar: Pune district to get all-women police station

Pune has around 14 per cent of women police personnel.

“The Maha Vikas Aghadi government is committed to ensuring safety of women (in the state). Our government is attaching top priority to the issue. In view of this, we are going to set up women exclusive police stations in all the districts of Maharashtra, and Pune is one of them,” Pawar said. Women from any part of the district can file their complaints with such a police station, he added.

The step has been taken, Shiv Sena leader and Deputy Chairperson of Legislative Council, Neelam Gorhe, said to ensure there is no delay in registering complaints from women on technical grounds. “This (all-women) police station will end jurisdiction debates among police stations… Police stations sometimes refuse to register complaints on the grounds that a particular crime has not happened under their limits. While a delay in registering a complaint can prove disastrous, it can also be a humiliating experience for women complainants…,” Gorhe said.

The Sena leader added that the step would encourage women to come forward to lodge complaints without any fear or hesitation. “If a police station is women dominated, obviously women complainant will be at ease in approaching the police personnel. In a male-dominated police station, women complainants may not feel comfortable,” she said.

Gorhe had submitted a report to the state government stating the need for all-women police stations. “But it does not mean that complaints in male-dominated police stations are not registered and that’s why an all-women dominated police station is being set up… It’s an experiment and the state government wants to see how it works out,” she added.

Welcoming the move, Pune Police Commissioner K Venkatesham said they are waiting for the guidelines from the government now. “We have about 14 per cent women police personnel in Pune. The figure keeps changing,” he said.

The police chief said they had already rolled out an experiment and put women in-charge of crucial events. “Last year, Republic Day and Independence Day events were exclusively managed by women police personnel,” he said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Pimpri-Chinchwad) Smita Patil said, “It indeed is a very good move… But I would like to say that this won’t mean that other police stations will not accept complaints from women. The women-exclusive police station will be an option, in case a complaint does not feel comfortable in approaching police stations dominated by men.”

Patil said the police commissioner, too, has made it clear that no police station should ever refuse a complaint from women victims. A women police officer, Patil said, is designated at all police stations to take complaints from women.