The Uttar Pradesh police seek to improve coordination among officers. (File Photo)
The Uttar Pradesh police have decided to integrate several services launched by the government to help women in distress. This includes women helpline (1090), the anti-Romeo squad and the UP-100 service. The trials of cases of crimes against children, under the POCSO Act, will be fast-tracked. The intent behind integrating these services is to cut down the response time of the police.
The Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, OP Singh, said they were giving utmost priority to checking crimes against women. He added that
the services were being integrated to provide immediate relief to women in distress.
"We are giving utmost priority to checking crimes against women. The state already has women helpline (1090), anti-Romeo squads and UP-100 services, where women can report crimes against them. Now, to provide immediate help to victims, we are going to integrate these three," Mr Singh said.
The DGP further said the integration will ensure better coordination among police officers. "Now anyone who wants to report their trouble can dial any of these numbers and they will get timely response. With integration of all these, better coordination will be ensured, which will help in reducing response time so that victims get timely help," he added.
Mr Singh said the state police are committed to the security of women/girls, and in cases of the POCSO Act, it will be ensured that accused are convicted by fast-tracking such cases.
"We are going to fast-track all POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual offences) cases in which charge sheets were submitted so that the accused are convicted. We are also sensitising the force to deal with such cases," he said.
As per the official data of state police, between January 1 to March 31, as many as 11,249 cases of crime were reported against women of which there were 899 cases of rape, 502 of dowry, 2,892 of sexual harassment, 3,573 of abduction and 3,135 cases of atrocities on women.
The police said the crime pattern was analysed and it came to the fore that in eight out of 10 rape or kidnapping cases, women had been assaulted by their acquaintances.
The DGP said the state police regularly review status of crimes against women and girls.
The complaints registered under IPC sections amounting to rape or rape attempt, kidnapping or abduction of women, dowry death, sexual harassment, obscenity, cruelty by husband or relatives or harassment over dowry among other charges are being reviewed to initiate measures to check such incidents.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had recently said that women's safety was the top priority of his government, which was taking all possible steps for their welfare and to make them self-reliant.
The Chief Minister said his government was running a number of schemes and programmes to keep crime against women under control.
His remarks came against the backdrop of outrage over the alleged involvement of BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar in a rape case.
Facing opposition flak, the state government handed over the case to the CBI, which arrested him on April 13 after questioning him for over 15 hours.
The rape victim's father, who was found dead in police custody, was allegedly falsely framed in a case of possessing illicit arms and sent to jail on the complaint of a person after being beaten up, allegedly by the MLA's brother and his men on the evening of April 3.
The girl's father was then lodged in Unnao district jail, allegedly without proper medical treatment resulting in his death in the Unnao district hospital on April 9.
The incident hogged media headlines for days together after the matter came to light when the victim tried to immolate herself outside the Chief Minister's residence over alleged police inaction in the case.
With inputs from PTI