CHENNAI:On December 29 last year, N Muniswari, an IT employee working at the Madras Expert Processing Zone (MEPZ )Tambaram, was returning home on an EMU when she was attacked by a robber, who, after snatching her thali, pushed her out of the train.
In addition to crimes for gain like these, eve-teasing in public places is one of the major concerns for women in the city. “It was around 7 pm, when I was walking towards my home. The street was dimly lit. Suddenly, I felt someone hitting me hard from behind. They were two teenaged boys riding a bike at high speed. They stopped for a while, laughed at me and fled,” said Sumi Siva, a play school teacher residing in Ashok Nagar. “I always thought my locality was safe, but after this incident I feel scared to step out on my own in a place where I have lived for years,” she added.
Such incidents never get recorded, although the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics, which is compiled based on the information provided by the State police, paints a rosy picture about Chennai as a city with one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
But a crime becomes a statistic only when it gets brutual. A case in point is the attack on a young woman on August 20 in a lift at the Kasthurbai Nagar MRTS station by an unidentifed person during peak hours.
The man, who appeared from nowhere, vanished after the act, and is yet to be traced by police.
“It is commonly said Chennai is comparatively a safer place. But from my experiences, I think incidents of women being harassed in public seem to be going up. For example, Chennai witnesses so many chain snatching instances in broad daylight. It’s not just the valuables, even a woman’s life is at risk when the attacker exerts force to remove the chain,” said M Shiamala Baby, executive director of Forum for Women’s Rights and Development. The city has also witnessed incidents of home-alone senior citizens being targeted and houses burgled when the inmates are away. “Senior citizens’ safety is our concern. We have taken several measures like collecting details of senior citizens living alone and our teams also visit them during routine patrols,” says a senior police officer in the city, asserting that the city police is doing their best on this count. According to independent websites, which compile safety indexes of cities based on crowd-sourced information, one of the most common personal safety concerns for women in the city is while travelling in crowded MTC buses.
“I was once travelling by bus to Perambur, it was over crowded. A man standing next to me began thrusting his body on mine, the more I moved further he came closer. I lost my cool and yelled at him. He, however, went on the defensive and four of his friends began arguing in his support. Finally, I had to give up and got down from the bus,” said Jaya Vishwanathan, a resident of MGR Nagar. Similar tales are abound on such websites.
“We have increased patrolling across the city and it has been planned in such a manner that the presence of policemen will be felt in all major roads. We are also actively pursuing all complaints posted on social media,” claimed another senior police official in the city. City residents feel that unless crimes like these come to an end, Chennai cannot be called as one of the safest places to live.
