She teams complete successful one year

Hyderabad:  It has been one year since the vigilant SHE teams have been launched by the Cyberabad Police, which successfully brought down the cases of eve-teasing under its jurisdiction. The teams will celebrate its first anniversary on December 13 at N Convention Centre, Madhapur. The progamme will be attended by Nizamabad MP K Kavitha, Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma and film actress Jayasudha.   

 During the last one year, a total of 825 offenders, including 118 minors, were arrested by SHE Teams of Cyberabad, after it was launched in December with 60 SHE teams. This include 110 FIR cases under 354 IPC, 506 IPC, 509 IPC and Nirbhaya Act and 550 petty cases under Section 70 B/C of Cyberabad City Police Act. A total of 660 cases were registered during the last one year.

Madhapur and Malkajgiri Zones recorded the highest number of cases. Madhapur zone recorded 198 cases and identified 216 offenders, while Malkajgiri zone recorded 149 and 209 respectively. Interestingly, the IT Corridor (Gachibowli) recorded least number of cases, with 68 cases and the teams identified 79 offenders.

 Each team consists of one Special Operations Team (SOT) constable, one Zonal Task Force (ZTF) constable and three women police constables. They identified 400 hotspots in Cyberabad’s 3,700 sq kms of jurisdiction including bus stops, colleges, cinema halls, malls and other public places, where women gather in large numbers and are likely to be eve-teased.

Their decoy operation includes visiting the hotspots in mufti with spy camera. They keep an eye on eve-teasers and stalkers and if identified, their video is recorded with the spy camera, while the culprits cause annoyance to a woman. Later, the constables in mufti catch hold of the eve-teaser and he would be taken to a police station. Apart from penalising, after registering the case against the eve-teasers, they are also made to attend professional counselling, sometimes by inviting their kins every Saturday.

During the last one year, the SHE teams conducted 496 awareness programmes in colleges, schools, malls and also in residential colonies. So far, 96,000 people were addressed in Malkajgiri, LB Nagar, Madhapur, IT Corridor, Balanagar and Shamshabad zones.

A five-pronged strategy was adopted in the IT Corridor, after Abhaya rape case was reported in October, 2013. This include increase in public transport, registration of cabs with police, intense patrolling and security check posts, CCTV surveillance with 150 high definition cameras and also conducting awareness programmes through short films, posters and meetings. The launching of SHE shuttles, SHE cabs and ‘Safe Stay’ also paid off good results, during the last one year.