Time's up for Eve teasers, Rachakonda SHE Team catches 33 offenders in a month

Hyderabad: The recently released NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) report reveals that Telangana has a severe problem of stalking, with regard to offences committed against women. As far as Hyderabad is concerned, numbers show that eve-teasing is also a prominent problem. In a span of a month, the Rachakonda SHE Team has caught 33 eve-teasers for harassing women.

Rachakonda SHE-Team had booked 41 cases against eve teasers in the last five weeks and apprehended 33 respondent eve teasers, out of which 29 are majors and 4 people are minors. Usually, eve-teasers who have been caught by the police will be given counselling sessions in the presence of their family members.

According to Mahesh Bhagwat, Commissioner of Police, Rachakonda, repeated offences with regard to eve-teasing are hardly any. “Continuous efforts have been going on since 2014 to curb eve-teasing and other issues. Also, in other cases where offenders usually gain confidence of the victim, women are now ready to report offences through WhatsApp. We also get information from victims who don’t wish to inform it to their parents. By maintaining confidentiality, and providing counselling, more issues are being reported and resolved.”

In another report released by the SHE team, eve-teasing and misbehaving ranked first among harassment faced by women in the twin cities. The report, which collected data from October 2014 till September 2019, also shows that harassment over the phone is the second most prevalent form of abuse, closely followed by stalking.

Sheik Saleema, Rachakonda SHE team head and Additional Deputy Commissioner for Police (Crimes) said that women prefer SHE teams over the normal police primarily because they are easily approachable and they do not re-victimise the survivor with their procedures. “In most of the cases, the survivor knows the accused personally, which is why the issue gets complicated with repeated harassment, stalking and threatening. In such a scenario, we take care not to engage in victim-blaming and provide counselling or monitoring, whenever required,” she said.