CHENNAI: Amala* lives in a small settlement in the suburbs. While her beady eyes and breezy smile will make one believe she is happy, the bruises on her body speak of an entirely different story.
Her husband would come home inebriated and beat her, sometimes with his hands and other times with a belt.
She spent months making excuses for him and even feeling like she was falling short in fulfilling her ‘duties’ towards him. However, one day when he hit her daughter, she couldn’t take it any longer.
She approached an All Women Police Station (AWPS) in the city and tried to file a complaint.
However, the complaint was not registered by the constables there because they said ‘fights’ and ‘disagreements’ like this were common among husband and wife. “I thought they will understand my plight. I was wrong. They dismissed it as a regular ‘tussle’ and told me not to bother them with such trivial stuff. The complaint was filed only after I took up the issue with an NGO.”
Interestingly, this is not the lone incident. There have been several complaints against AWPS failing to take up complaints.
The State currently has 203 AWPS. Yet, activists believe the stations do not serve their purpose as women are hesitant to approach these facilities and even if they do, many are sent back due to the ‘insensitive’ behaviour of police personnel.
“It is a namesake measure,” alleges Jaya Arunachalam, president of the NGO, Working Women’s Forum.
“Women from marginalised communities are reluctant to report violence for fear of inaction or indifference by State authorities who may even condone such violence or for fear of being stigmatised within their own communities. The women working at these stations are not at all sensitive and take no initiative to resolve the issues of the distressed women,” she claimed.
KR Renuka, chairman of the Centre for Women’s Development and Research, echoed this sentiment. She recounted an incident that occurred last year where two sisters were allegedly deceived into marrying two men who later supposedly raped them and got them pregnant.
The girls, who were around 20 years old, approached the police to file a complaint. But, the police began asking them incriminating questions and indulged in character assassination. It was only after that the centre intervened and ensured that a complaint was filed.
“Their gender sensitivity is zero,” Renuka said. “They use foul language, abusive words and make it a
very hostile environment for women to come and share their problems and that totally defeats the purpose. Their general response is that people will get to know if you complain, it will come in the media and then who will marry your child. Marriage of the girl child is a very big deal for most of these people, so they don’t end up complaining fearing the stigma.”
But officers of various AWPS refute these claims and dismiss them as baseless. They claim that there is no stigma attached to going to a police station to complain any more. They said that the police are extremely approachable and willing to lend a ear to anyone who walks into the police station.
“The only time that people hesitate is when they fear that their husband will leave them after the complaint or will cause any harm to the family name. We take down every complaint and don’t send anyone back without a fair hearing. But owing to all the other duties that we are put on, there are times when our strength falls short. That is the only issue,” an officer explained.
Mangai Natarajan, professor, Department of Criminal Justice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, agreed that strength in police stations is indeed an issue.
“Women constables are taken for other duties and hardly one or two constables remain in the stations. Perhaps women do not report because of that. The police force need to evaluate this before making any conclusions about the effectiveness of AWPS.”
The police feel the ‘stigma’ is a presumption of an individual and that all facilities and infrastructure are in place to be availed of by victims.
“If someone assumes they will be stigmatised and do not complain, what can we do about that?” a senior police official said on condition of anonymity. “The AWPS are there and ready to help at all times. All the victim has to do is to approach the station and action will be taken. Without a complaint, the police can do nothing.”
Experts feel sensitisation during the police’s training period is a must in order to have a more sensitive police force.
“The induction training curriculum of police personnel needs to be designed to build in such sensitivities right from the beginning,” said N Ramachandran, former DGP (Assam & Meghalaya) and president and CEO of Indian Police Foundation. “This will equip them to handle these cases.”
Meanwhile, some feel it need not be a separate entity and can be merged with the larger force.
“The AWPS experiment has been considered an inadequate model,” said Ramachandran. “In the modern policing model, women police should be adequately represented in the regular police stations and be trained to handle issues that relate not just to women but to society at large.”
*name changed on request