Operation Aadhar for women's safety

NASHIK: 'Operation Aadhar' came into force on Saturday when the zone II police appointed six women officers to keep in touch with rape survivors and family members of domestic violence victims.
The officers will keep them informed about the status of their complaints, besides gauging if they were facing any problems in the case, police said.
This is a unique initiative undertaken by the police to reach out to women especially, who usually refrain from coming out in the open to discuss such matters.
Senior police officials said there are 51 cases pertaining to outraging modesty, rape, dowry death and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO) registered with the police falling in Zone II this year.
The women police officers were instructed to meet the complainants in the case and speak to them and find out if they were facing any problem relating to the case, officials said.
Deputy commissioner of police (zone II) Srikant Dhivare said, "Cases such as sexual assault and outraging modesty are sensitive in nature. Once the victims lodge a complaint, they are constantly thinking if the suspect has been arrested; and if arrested, is he out on bail. Many a time, they are worried about when the chargesheet would be filed and when the case would come for hearing."
"In view of all such things, we thought of meeting the complainants to inform them about the status of their case. There are also chances that the accused in the case could be harassing the complainants, which is possible in cases like outraging modesty. Thus our aim was to provide such complainants support and we decided to name the operation as 'Operation Aadhar'."
Officials also said that since all the cases are related to women, they have appointed women officers.
The attempt of the six-member team will be to reach out to all the 51 complainants within a day or two and note down their problems if they are facing any. Officials further said that since they have taken only the cases of women that were registered this year on an experimental basis, if it was found that the women were more vocal about speaking out their problems, they will take into consideration cases registered against women from last year as well.