Assam DGP vouches for multi-pronged approach to curb crimes against women, children

Guwahati, July 14: Assam Director General of Police (DGP) Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta today reiterated that the state police was determined and committed to fight crime against women and children.

He was addressing a meeting of stakeholders on women and child safety-related issues here and stressed on the need for a multidisciplinary approach to effectively combat and curb crimes against women and children in the state.

The meeting was organised by CID, Assam with the objective of developing a mechanism of convergence among the stakeholders, namely the police, various government departments such as social welfare, education, labour, judicial, health and other government organisations like the State Commission for Women, State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, NGOs and educational institutes.

“The stakeholders need to work in close coordination for a synergistic approach to address the issues related to women and children safety,” the DGP said.

Participating as guest of honour, Hemaprabha Barthakur, chairperson, State Commission for Women, stressed the need for a multipronged approach and elaborated the steps taken by the commission in the recent times to combat crimes against women and children.

She appreciated the efforts of the Assam Police in this regard and stated that all the stakeholders would have to work tirelessly to provide protection to women and children.

Earlier, A.Y.V. Krishna, additional director general of police, CID, Assam, spoke in detail about the steps taken by Assam Police to deal with crimes against women and children.

He spoke about setting up of a division headed by a SP rank officer in the CID headquarters for monitoring heinous crimes against women and children and setting up of special cells for women in 11 districts in collaboration with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) as a multi-agency approach with an aim to provide legal, psychological and counselling to women victims.

In this regard the Assam government had recently signed a MoU with TISS.

“Special juvenile police units are now operational in all districts headed by a DSP/ASP with a child welfare officer in each police station,” Krishna said.

“Women help desks are functional across 320 police stations, exclusive training programmes for more than 1330 police officers have been conducted by CID in the last two years and a family counselling centre has been started at CID Headquarters. Besides, a Sishu Mitra Resource Centre has been set up in collaboration with UNICEF and anti-human trafficking units have been set up in all districts,” he added.

On the occasion, a “Handbook for Investigating Officers of Crimes against Women and Children”, compiled by CID Assam, was also launched by the dignitaries.