Thaindian News

New Delhi, Oct 23 (IANS) Northeastern women and students in the capital are sceptical of the recently updated Delhi Police circular which talks about a zero tolerance policy to any crime against the community. Many fear that this will just be another document that hardly gets implemented.
In a bid to put a stop to all the cases of crime against the northeastern community in the capital, Delhi Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal sent a circular to his men, asking them to take prompt and serious action as soon as any complaint comes.

Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said that while the circular was issued a year back, it was updated about two weeks ago.

“Last year there were a number of cases of crime against women from the northeastern states, following which a circular was issued to take strict action against the culprits. About two weeks back, this circular was updated with new contact numbers of the coordinating officers,” Bhagat told IANS.

“We are also in touch with the different student unions of the northeast so that we can get first hand information on any crime like eve teasing or stalking,” he added.

However, most northeastern women are not very sure how beneficial this initiative will be.

Kasturi Nath from Assam who has been working in Delhi for the past two years said: “It’s a good move on the part of the Delhi Police but I doubt its efficacy. Almost everyday I hear of cases of crime against women from the northeast but there is hardly any action taken.”

Similary Livi Sinha, a Delhi university student who hails from Manipur said: “I have had a bad experience with the police here. I was once being stalked by some bikers when I was returning home late in the evening. I called the Delhi Police helpline, but no help came until about 45 minutes!”.

“In the meanwhile, I went into a coffee shop and took refuge there. The police came thereafter and instead of being helpful, started passing comments on how we northeastern women ‘invite trouble’,” Sinha told IANS.

“So if they are trying to change their attitude and be more helpful towards us, it’s an encouraging move. But frankly, I doubt if it will change anything,” she added.

According to figures available with the Northeast Support Centre and Helpline, around 100 cases of physical and verbal abuse, molestation, rape and beating of boys and girls of the region were reported in Delhi in 2006 and 2007.

Madhu Chandra of the support centre said: “In 2008 we received only three episodes of attacks on people of northeast India in Delhi. But they were heinous in nature, pertaining to sexual assaults and beating of women.”

This year, till May, the centre had received 12 complaints of harassment, rape, physical and verbal abuse of northeastern people in Delhi.

On Oct 18, two men reportedly tried to pull a northeastern woman into their car when she was on her way home in south Delhi.

Lansinglu of the support centre told IANS: “I have heard about the Delhi Police circular but have not seen it so I don’t know what its salient features are. If the police actually become more stringent against culprits and more approachable for the people of the northeast, then our work will become much less because people will go straight to the police with their complaints.”