Mahila Police

women

The rest

Resource Centre

Women and Child Development Department

Dinesh Kapadia

director

woman head constable

tricky

commissioner

Director General

Odhav police

Deepika Thakur

The situation

counsellor

Jyoti Sangh

A 27-year-old woman from Bapunagar submitted an application atStation in Mithakhali against her 32-year-old husband. She stated that during their four years of marriage in Mumbai, her husband would often return drunk post midnight and quarrel with her. The counselling by the police failed and the couple decided to separate.A 16-year-old girl working at a call centre fell in love with a 24-year-old colleague. He promised to marry her and developed physical relations. When she approached the police, she was sent back after being told that nothing could be done. Finally, a case of rape and cheating was registered against the man after the intervention of an NGO.Thepolice station receives 30 to 35 applications every day. Of these, eight to 10 get converted into cases.are sorted out through counselling of the couples by 24 senior staff members at the police station which has a strength of 74 employees. But shockingly, none of the staff members in the city who provide marital counselling to the estranged couples has been trained as counsellors.Gender(GRC) of the state’sconducts regular programmes on gender sensitisation but that does not officially entitle those who undergo training to counsel anyone. The law is very clear. Counselling by the policemen is not allowed. So, they do not need any training for the task. Their job is to see if there is a cognisable offence of domestic violence under sub-section (1) of section 154 of CrPC before filing a case. They cross their brief by counselling because their method is not scientific,” said Dr, GRCAlthough ACP Kanan Desai ensures that her staff are updated with the latest amendments to the law and also coached them last year for halfan- hour daily for almost six weeks to guide them in handling certain issues and situations, no formal training in counselling has ever been given to them.“We have been asked to apply our understanding to deal with the cases we handle. This requires a lot of observation and good sense of judgment to see which allegations are genuine and which ones are made up,” said awho was posted at the women police station about two years ago. “It gets verysometimes because the moment we say one is at mistake, we are accused of being corrupt and biased. We don’t know how to deal with such allegations, especially since the meetings go on for hours,” said a PSI who joined the police station about a year ago.The department accepts that it is short staffed in this area. “We have asked for female psychologists and psychoanalysts. Theof police will activate the hiring process soon. We have contacted NGOs and universities to provide us with the trained staff who could help us,” saidof Police P C Thakur. The GRC support centre has only two trained counsellors for each district. The two allocated to Ahmedabad have been stationed atstation. But their schedule barely leaves anytime for them to visit other police stations.As a result, while the police staff deal with marital woes, cases involving severe psychological trauma like rape, physical abuse, stalking and harassment, etc, are handled by trained volunteers from NGOs. “All such applications are referred to us for counselling here. With four to five new cases a day and follow-ups of the previous cases, there is hardly any time to visit any other police station in the city,” said counsellorgets worse when the police prefer to sort the matter at the level of the first application so that an FIR is not filed to show a low crime rate. Cops insist that the couples call it a truce and often pressure them into this. “It is very common that couples are asked to strike a compromise because the police do not want too many cases filed at their stations. “As a result, many times the victims are not informed of their legal rights and options available,” said Aniket Patel,with NGOwhich is on call for Mahila Police.