CHENNAI: A PIL petition has been filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to the government to set up centres to offer counselling to the victims of sexual harassment, at all the police stations in the State and to educate the police on cybercrime.
A division bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad, before which the PIL from city-based Krishnapriya, said to be the daughter of Elavarasi, a close relative to former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s aide VK Sasikala, came up on Monday, issued notice to the Special Government Pleader, representing the Home and Social Welfare departments and the DGP, returnable by June 13.
After referring to the sex scam in Pollachi that rocked the State and the debacle of top police officers in disclosing the name of a victim, the petitioner said that the government should impart training and conduct workshops for the police personnel, to sensitise them to the trauma faced by the victims. It is necessary to establish special courts for fast-tracking the offences committed against women in general and internet pornographic offences in particular.
The educational institutions shall conduct workshops and awareness programmes and constitute disciplinary committees to deal exclusively with these types of offences. The punishments for the same ought to be very stringent. Stating that psychological wounds are harder to heal than bodily injuries, the petitioner added that counselling centres are a must in police stations.