Delhi’s streets will soon see more policewomen as the Union ministry of home affairs has gone into overdrive to give the Delhi police a women-centric face.
The MHA has made a waiver for the Delhi police to give 50 per cent seats to women in the police force, which is filling up 1,000 posts for constable immediately.
The brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old woman in December led to the move to augment the female component of the police force.
The Justice J.S. Verma Committee has criticised the home ministry and Delhi police for its failure to prevent the crime and blamed the “patriarchal” mindset of the police forces for their inability to make the cities safer for women.
In an order passed this month, the MHA has said that 500 out of 1,000 recruitments (for constable) should be women. The move comes soon after Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde directed the Delhi police to post at least one woman police officer in each police station. The belated measure is seen in the MHA as the beginning of a complete overhaul of the Delhi police.
Top government officials said the police force will be given a pan-India face by recruiting personnel from different states. “The constabulary needs to consist of persons from the Northeast as much as from the southern parts of the country and so on,” an official said. MHA officials said the fresh step is aimed at making women from different parts of the country feel safe and comfortable in the city.