No She teams here

Secunderabad: Srividya, 17, a college going student and resident of Anandbagh has a regular schedule. Every evening she stands for a bus at the Rathifile bus stop and daily she has to go through an ordeal of eve teasers who worry her no end. With no one to turn to and no policemen around, she silently bears the brunt and ignores the jibes. Like her there are hundreds of college going girls and working women who are harassed at the bus stop.

When we spoke to the additional commissioner of police and in-charge of SHE TEAM, Shikha Goel, she said that they take action when they receive complaints. Rekha Nair, another regular at the bus stop who works in a shopping mall in R P Road shared her angst, “Boys pass rude comments and shower us with lewd looks. But even worse are middle-aged and oldies who touch us inappropriately. I shout at them but many women do not and that is why they take advantage.”

A Telanagana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) bus driver says, “It is a big problem at the Rathifile and there was a time when there used to be regular patrolling. Of late, we do not find them.” At first, the victim goes into panic mode when she is ill treated by a stranger on road and later she might not have guts or hesitate to lodge a complaint in the fear of losing her family reputation.

The SHE TEAM officials say that they deploy personnel at different places in a day and carry out recce operation as per the list of hotspots. They also head to locations when they receive complaints. “If the team has not gone to the Secunderabad bus stop near railway station, I will immediately instruct the team to visit and catch hold of the culprits’ red handed if possible,” said Shikha Goel.

BY Sushma Nagaraju