Helpline workers with Bengaluru police harassed with obscene calls

The calls are made to police helplines for women and elders; no complaint lodged yet.

BENGALURU: Women employees manning two helpline numbers of the Bengaluru City Police have been at the receiving end of many calls from perverts who seek sexual favours and abuse them in foul language on an everyday basis.

The helplines that are the targets of such perverts are Vanitha Sahayavani 1091 for women and helpline number 1090 for elders. However, despite the trauma these women employees go through, no complaint has been registered so far.

A woman police constable who works with Vanitha Sahayavani said, “Such calls have become a regular thing. On weekends and on holidays, we are flooded with such calls. They start with asking for sexual favours and when we tell them not to talk this way, they start hurling abuses. We then disconnect the call. At times it makes us so angry that we want to give a fitting reply, but since this is a helpline we need to maintain decency.”

She added, “We have not filed any complaint but have brought this to the notice of police officials in the commissioner’s office. There has been no action.”

Sandhya, who works for the helpline for elders, said, “We work 12 hours a day and thanks to such calls, our day does end on a bad note. When a man receives the call, the perverts cut the call and dial again in sometime.”

Swathi, senior manager of Nightingale Medical Trust, an NGO which works with the helpline for elders, said, “This has been going on for a long time. Such calls prevent us from receiving many genuine calls.”

This is not the first time such an incident has come to light.

Some two years ago, women working for the police helpline Dial 100 were also harassed by such callers on a regular basis. DCP (Command Centre) Nagendra Kumar had filed complaints in Cubbon Park police station and seven people were arrested.

Kumar said, “We have not received any complaint from both the authorities of the helplines. I will ask them to lodge a complaint and give us the callers’ phone numbers. We will file a case and book those perverts. I will take information from both the agencies on Friday.”

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