Coming as a measure to prevent the rising crimes against women, Delhi will for the first time have the country’s first all-women police control room (PCR) vans. Each PCR van will consist of three women personnel, including a woman commando. These PCR van will attend all the distress calls of women in their respective jurisdiction.
As a Pilot project, Police Commissioner Alok Kumar Verma has directed to make a PCR van unit fully managed by women. Special Commissioner of Police, operations, Sanjay Beniwal heading this PCR unit has come up with five PCR vans which will be managed by women personnel. The unit will be flagged off by next week and will be seen on city roads thereafter, particularly in lutyens’ Delhi. The unit will be gradually expanded.
After the December 16, 2012 brutal gang rape and murder incident of a medical student in the national Capital, there was a big hue and cry from all quarters over non deployment of women personnel in police control room van as women victims keep themselves away from revealing their problem to men personnel during distress call.
Till August 15, this year, 9,898 cases of various crime incidents against women have been reported, which includes 1,397 rape incident and 2,725 cases of molestation.
The PCR is one of the biggest unit of the Delhi Police with 8,500-personnel. The sanctioned strength of PCR vans is 1,000-of which around 150 are diverted to VIP security and 193 vehicles are non-functional and the request to replace these vehicles is pending with the Home Ministry. So, the police are left with around 657 PCR vans to attend to distress calls. They get a total of 73 lakh calls a year, which makes it nearly 22,000 calls per day, which in turn is about 30 calls a day per van. Out of these around 5,000 calls are actionable.
Even if the PCR van personnel take about an hour to attend to each call, they will still not be able to attend to every SOS that comes their way.
“The PCR vans even act like ambulance. They put their lives at risk while chasing and catching criminals. They carry unidentified bodies dumped on city roads. They assist local police and attend to various distress calls,” said a senior police officer.
The officer further stated that the women personnel deployed in PCR vans have been trained to deal will all kinds of distress call. “From chasing killers on street to nabbing molesters and gun combat, the women personnel have been trained on everything. They have also been given basic medical training,” the officer said.