Police says crimes against women drops in the state

Womenfolks, its time to thank SHE Teams. It is due to the efforts of this special wing of Telangana police that crimes against women have dropped considerably in 2018. According to Swati Lakra, the Inspector General (Law and Order) and Head of State In-Charge of Women Safety wing -- SHE Teams and Bharosa, during the year that just passed by the division received a total of 8,281 complaints from women on various issues and succeeded in solving majority of the cases.

Speaking to the media here on Friday, Swati Lakra said that SHE Teams’ efficiency not only led to solving to several cases but also led to drop in crime rate against women.

“Each of the SHE Team is headed by a Sub-Inspector of Police and consists of an Assistant Sub-Inspector or Head Constable, a lady constable and two to three male constables. Every unit of ‘SHE’ Team is headed and supervised by a Deputy Superintendent of Police rank officer. The SHE Teams main objective is catch culprits red-handed, with its personnel recording the offence and acting on complaints received through WhatsApp and certain social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, mobile app Hawk Eye, emails, India Post and direct walk-ins into the SHE Teams office,” she said.

“There is a gradual reduction in juvenile delinquency as a result of the awareness campaign as well as the counselling sessions organised for the minors and their parents with the help of professional psychologists. The percentage of minors indulged in misbehaving in the twin cities has dropped from 26 per cent in 2014-15 to 12 per cent in 2018-19. During the 2018 year, SHE Teams registered a total 771 FIRs, petty cases -- 1,351, counselled and monitored -- 3,379 miscreants, police warned and let off at least -- 3,077 miscreants,” Swati Lakra said.

The complainants received by the SHE Teams during the year included 2,709 direct complaints, 2,825 on WhatsApp, 2,270 by Dial 100, 351 by emails, 100 on Hawk-Eye and 26 on Facebook.She also informed that the SHE Teams have also been successfully conducting decoy operations to catching eve teasers.

“To conduct decoy operations and in order to ensure a citizen and community friendly interaction, the SHE Team personnel will be in civil dress. Apart from nabbing the people who harass women with video evidence and punishing them with relevant cases, awareness programs are also conducted in order to make people aware of how to approach the teams in case of any problem,” Swati Lakra said.

Different kinds of cases were registered and investigated into right from IPC, IT Act, Nirbhaya Act to petty cases. PD Act proceedings were also initiated against the repeat offenders. Minors were counselled in the presence of their parents.