People in Hyderabad could soon see women cops vrooming on bikes through the busy roads of the city. After introducing crèches for children of women police officers in the city, the Hyderabad police have come up with another initiative for their women officers – a new women-patrolling force. While New Delhi has a similar idea in the pipeline, the Hyderabad police claim its initiative to be a truly unique one.
The initiative, which was launched almost a week ago, has 46 women on the ground, who would patrol the city on their bikes in pairs. Women officers were selected based on certain criteria – their willingness to move into the city, their ability to adapt to technology and ride vehicles. The selected officers then undergo an extensive training for over two months.
Speaking to #KhabarLive, Shikha Goel, Commissioner of Police, says that the main reason behind launching the initiative is to mainstream the women police officers in the city and make them perform duties that till date have been restricted to their male counterparts.
“We want women police officers to integrate with the Blue-Gold patrolling team of the city police. The women cops would be performing duties that are similar to the ones performed by the Blue Gold at present. We don’t want to make patrolling exclusive to men and want it to be an inclusive project,” Shikha says.
The two-month training has equipped the young women officers with technology, unarmed combat and has also made them bike riders. Shikha says that depending on the success of the project, they will recruit more women cops to be a part of the programme.
“We have launched only a pilot programme now. Depending on how successful we are, we will be extending the project. Right now we have 20 teams that are deployed in 20 different police stations in the city. We also need to make more women experts in driving and unarmed combat. Depending on the success rate, we would have a team in each police station in the city,” the officer says.
The project, yet to take off, have not put women on patrolling duties at night and have limited their duties to the daytime.
“Right now, we have a minimal number of women and not enough to be deployed for night duties. We need better training that will make women more alert and vigilant about the perils of patrolling during night time. However, the women officers are equipped with tablets that would help them receive any emergency calls while on duty,” Shikha explains.
In another unique initiative, the Hyderabad police, over a month ago, had announced to set up mobile toilets for women cops who are deployed on bandobast duties in the city. The move was hailed as the need of the hour as it helps women officers, who otherwise have to be at the mercy of government offices in the vicinity to relieve themselves. #KhabarLive
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