Bengaluru: Last week, a woman who approached the Viveknagar police to complain against an assault was treated insensitively, an activist has revealed.
The 20-year-old, who works as a saleswoman, walked up to the police station on October 23. She had been assaulted by a male acquaintance. Female police personnel ridiculed and mocked her, says Dushyant Dubey, a social worker she called for support.
On visiting her flat the following day, they filled the landlord in on her predicament and alluded to her having multiple partners, alleges Dushyant. The landlord then asked her to vacate the house, he told Metrolife.
“When a woman is savagely beaten up by a criminal, shouldn’t we be gentle with her? That’s one of the reasons women cops were put in police stations, so that women feel comfortable approaching the police,” he says.
When Metrolife contacted the police station, an official claimed no FIR was on record with the girl’s name. However, Dushyant confirmed it was filed, and sent a soft copy of it to Metrolife.
Top cop says…
When Metrolife contacted City Police Commissioner B Dayananda, he said sensitisation programmes were held regularly for the force through Nimhans and other NGOs.
Sessions are conducted monthly, but still, many police personnel treat the poor badly when they seek to file a complaint, activists, advocates and social workers told Metrolife.
Initiatives like the Loka Spandana QR Code feedback system, launched about a year ago, have helped improve officers’ soft skills, but there’s still a long way to go, they said.
Quite common
Niyaz Moosa, advocate and human rights activist, says the police are often reluctant to register complaints.
Three days ago, a client’s husband was murdered. The bereaved 56-year-old has been trying to get the police to investigate the murder but without much success, he says. Another client, a poor labourer, was nabbed within hours for allegedly buying a stolen phone from National Market.
“While sensitisation is necessary, bringing corruption down and increasing salaries will help,” says Niyaz. Sivamanithan, a human rights lawyer, recalls multiple cases of mistreatment, including the custodial death of a young Muslim boy. “Sensitisation classes are only for the sake of checking it off a list,” he remarks.
‘Sensitise all staff, not just a few’
According to social worker Brinda Adige, those who are sent for the monthly sensitisation training are usually officials who are retiring soon or who have few responsibilities.“Ideally, all the staff employed in a police station should be trained together,” says Brinda who is part of Global Concerns India and Mukti-An alliance against human trafficking and bonded labour. She believes it is more important for the station writers (the ones who write down the complaints and FIRs) to attend the training. “The way the statement is written makes a huge difference to the case,” she said.
Apart from this, the teams are involved in pre-service training. “Police training at the academies is an 11-month programme before officers are inducted into the force. They are required to write an exam at the end of the training. It covers aspects like gender sensitivity,the right way to treat women, children, the physically challenged and people with mental health issues,” explained Brinda.
Topics like LGBTQ, Dalit, and other minority communities are not included. Brinda revealed that the team at Mukti are currently in talks with Alok Kumar, ADGP, training for a more strategic approach to the sensitisation training sessions.
(Published 01 November 2023, 00:38 IST)