CHANDIGARH: A month after the Varnika Kundu stalking incident that grabbed eyeballs across the nation, women have decided enough is enough. Gurgaon-based Central government employee Geeta Yatharth (30) has started a movement ‘Meri Raat Meri Sakad’ (My Night My Road) through her Facebook page ‘Apni Sadkein’ (My Roads). “I started the movement on August 12 with an aim to bring the women of the country on a single platform. It is taboo for a woman to move alone at night. They are seen as ‘easy preys’, I wanted to normalise that,” says Geeta, who works with the Press Information Bureau (PIB) in Delhi, adding that “people from all age groups and different walks of life got in touch once I launched the movement. It soon became a full-fledged movement.”
The groups function in Delhi and Kolkata, besides Panchkula, Rohtak and Kurukshetra in Haryana. In Uttar Pradesh, it has its presence in Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur, and Saharanpur. Bastar, Bhilai, and Raipur in Chhattisgarh, and Jaipur and Kota in Rajasthan also have active members.
Geeta says every Saturday, in order to send out a loud and clear message, the members walk in their respective cities for a few hours from around 9 pm till 2 am. They also go live on social platforms in order to spread this message.“We have circulated our mobile numbers in all the cities where we take this initiative, but we have not received any distress call till date,’’ she adds.
Geeta clarifies that this is a completely apolitical group, nor is it an NGO. She says that it is just a group of women taking a bold step towards reclaiming their roads. Men are also showing their support by joining the campaign.“My aim is that this message of women being safe on roads should reach the smallest city in the country and women should know about their rights,’’ she adds.Geeta’s campaign is limited to Hindi-speaking states and has only recently been launched, but that haven’t stopped it from garnering over 2,000 followers on the Facebook page. Geeta is now making efforts to reach out to the southern states and the Northeast. A month after the Varnika Kundu stalking incident that grabbed eyeballs across the nation, women have decided enough is enough. Gurgaon-based Central government employee Geeta Yatharth (30) has started a movement ‘Meri Raat Meri Sakad’ (My Night My Road) through her Facebook page ‘Apni Sadkein’ (My Roads).
“I started the movement on August 12 with an aim to bring the women of the country on a single platform. It is taboo for a woman to move alone at night. They are seen as ‘easy preys’, I wanted to normalise that,” says Geeta, who works with the Press Information Bureau (PIB) in Delhi, adding that “people from all age groups and different walks of life got in touch once I launched the movement. It soon became a full-fledged movement.”
The groups function in Delhi and Kolkata, besides Panchkula, Rohtak and Kurukshetra in Haryana. In Uttar Pradesh, it has its presence in Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur, and Saharanpur. Bastar, Bhilai, and Raipur in Chhattisgarh, and Jaipur and Kota in Rajasthan also have active members.
Geeta says every Saturday, in order to send out a loud and clear message, the members walk in their respective cities for a few hours from around 9 pm till 2 am. They also go live on social platforms in order to spread this message.“We have circulated our mobile numbers in all the cities where we take this initiative, but we have not received any distress call till date,’’ she adds.
Geeta clarifies that this is a completely apolitical group, nor is it an NGO. She says that it is just a group of women taking a bold step towards reclaiming their roads. Men are also showing their support by joining the campaign.“My aim is that this message of women being safe on roads should reach the smallest city in the country and women should know about their rights,’’ she adds.
Geeta’s campaign is limited to Hindi-speaking states and has only recently been launched, but that haven’t stopped it from garnering over 2,000 followers on the Facebook page. Geeta is now making efforts to reach out to the southern states and the Northeast.
Taking the Right Steps
The movement is trending with the hashtag #MeriRaatMeriSadak
More than 15 cities have formed groups that are working on the ground
The target is to spread the movement in tier-II and tier-III cities
At present, there are 4,000 active members across the country