At this Delhi Police workshop, the aim is to be women-friendly

At a police station in central Delhi, 40
officers of the Delhi Police are spending a
third consecutive day learning how to be
more sensitive and responsive to crimes
against women.
The officers are from across ranks and
police stations, but all of them work on
crimes such as rape, molestation and
sexual harassment on a daily basis.
The three-day gender sensitisation
workshop, which wraps up today, comes
amid continuing outrage over the gang-
rape of a 23-year-old student in a moving
bus in Delhi last month and lax policing
that failed to stop the culprits as they
drove the bus through several
checkpoints.
Activists have long complained that
India's largely male police force is not
sensitive in handling sex crimes and does
not investigate such cases properly.
In December last year, a 27-year-old
woman in Punjab was driven to suicide
after police allegedly refused to register
her rape complaint and asked her
humiliating questions.
Ranjana Kumari of the Centre for Social
Research says: "There is a mindset
problem that needs to be addressed.
They perceive women by the clothes
worn or what time of the night the crime
happened. They don't realise the whole
environment has changed."
But officers attending the workshop say
the police alone cannot be blamed. Sub-
Inspector Shashank Tripathi, who is 26
and joined the Delhi Police three years
ago, said: "The police are part of the
society. Policemen are exposed to the
same mindset in their formative years
like the rest of the society. So the blame,
if any, lies with the society and not the
police."
Special Commissioner of Police (Training) S
N Shrivastava steers away from the
debate and says: "Many people say they
have problems in dealing with the police,
others say they don't. I don't want to get
into that. My job is to try my level best to
educate my officers, and the Delhi Police
is trying to do that."
Yesterday, the Delhi Police came a step
closer to making itself friendlier to women
when the Union Home Ministry
announced that every police station in the
Capital would appoint two women sub-
inspectors and seven women constables.
But Prakash Singh, a former Director
General of Police, says only a special force
to deal with crimes against women can
solve the problem. He says those who
join this force should be no less than
graduates in social sciences.