Delhi case: No jurisdiction trap, minister takes night bus

New Delhi, Jan 18: The continued debate after the

is keeping the home minister awake and makes the police commissioner to remove procedural hurdles in the registration of complaints in women's issue.

Yesterday, Union Minister of State for Home RPN Singh kept himself awake and travelled in DTC buses at night to check the security for common people especially women.

Braving cold temperatures, Singh travelled in the buses last night for at least three hours in different routes and reviewed the security being provided along the routes and bus stops.

He also interacted with fellow travellers and listened to their suggestions about improving the bus services as well as security. Singh also gave instructions to police on a few occasions.

The minister's exercise was part of government's efforts to improve the security in the national capital after the Dec 16 gangrape of the paramedic student in a moving bus.

On the other hand, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar terming the incident of gangrape of paramedical student as a "turning point" and initiated elaborated steps to ensure safety of women in the national capital.

Most important step was to overcome jurisdictional dispute. He said if a women complainant approaches a police station, jurisdiction would never be an issue as "the complainant has to be dealt with there". "In fact, I have gone a step further and said that not only women complainant but any complaint pertaining to crime if it requires prompt response, must be responded to immediately without the issue of jurisdiction, which can be decided later," he said.

"We have a system of Zero FIR, but our idea is action," referring to the practice of registering FIR and forwarding it to concerned police station.

Among the measures, Delhi Police has made its helpline functional 24x7, which earlier used to operate till 8 PM. "Every women police desk is being provided with an exclusive telephone line. Most of the police stations have already been provided with this facility, some are left but within a week all the women helpdesk would get their dedicated phones," Kumar said while addressing the annual press conference by the Delhi police chief.

The top Delhi police official said there was 1.75 per cent increase in crimes in 2012. There were 54,287 cases in 2012 as compared to 53,353 in 2011. There were 706 cases of rape, 543 of murder (521 in 2011) vehicle theft 14,391 (14,668 in 2011) and snatching 1,440 (1476 in 2011), he said.

OneIndia News