Women's safety: Shinde should go beyond assurances

NEW DELHI, Feb 16: Exactly two months after the horrific incident involving a 23-year-old barveheart in Delhi, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde is still talking of working towards bringing more tougher laws and fast-track courts to try cases like the "shameful" December 16 gang rape to instill confidence among women in the country.

However, Shinde's speech today fails to raise confidence in women as there is no plan of action coming from the government side. The women's security is such a vast subject that it demands a White Paper on the intent and action taken by the government.

At the function to mark Delhi Police 66th Raising Day, Shinde and Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar lauded each other. The home minister, who began his career as a police constable, praised the Delhi Police for acting "promptly" and nabbing the accused within 24 hours and filing a chargesheet in the case in 18 days. On the otherhand, Neeraj Kumar said the public opinion and media was painting a "negative picture" of the force after the incident but the Government of India, especially the home ministry stood by the Delhi Police during the time.

"I thank Sushilkumar Shinde and RPN Singh (minister of state for home) for their support," he said.

Apart from patting each other they paid rhetorical respects to the civil society. Noting that more steps are needed for ensuring safety of women, he said Delhi Police has taken several steps after the gang rape of the 23-year-old paramedical student and hoped that they will instill confidence in women.

"Although the police job is to maintain law and order, public comes to police for all the problems, so we need to make the working of police more transparent and sensitive...police should be friends of the people," he said.

Neeraj Kumar termed the gang rape as a "horrific" incident and spoke about the anger of people on the streets of Delhi after the incident.

"Delhiites came on to the streets to express their anger on the incident. Their anger which was probably against the laws they expressed it on police. During the protests, one of our police constable lost his life and many police officers were injured in the protests," he said, adding that the case was solved within 24 hours.

We agree with Shinde when says that police have been doing a lot for the safety of women in capital and a lot has to be done, but the home minister needs to do more than this. We would like to see involvement of other ministries like social and women's welfare, HRD and NGOs apart from the state governments in raising awareness about the women's security.

OneIndia News