WhatsApp comes in handy for women to reach cops

Hyderabad: She Teams of the Cyberabad Police are becoming much accessible to victims of sexual harassment with the help of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp. The messaging service has become a bridge between the police and complainants, officials said, pointing out that in October, out of the 200 complaints, 121 complaints were received via WhatsApp. […]

Hyderabad: She Teams of the Cyberabad Police are becoming much accessible to victims of sexual harassment with the help of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp.

The messaging service has become a bridge between the police and complainants, officials said, pointing out that in October, out of the 200 complaints, 121 complaints were received via WhatsApp. Of the rest, 51 were received directly, four came through the Hawk Eye app, nine through the Women Safety Wing, eight via e-mails and four through the QR Code scan system.

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“Our aim and efforts are to ensure that no victim is struck by stigma and steps back from lodging a complaint. Multiple modes of lodging a complaint, particularly online mode with the advent of WhatsApp, has made the process of complaining much easier for the already tensed and scared victim,” a senior official said.

Of the complaints, 50 pertained to phone harassment, while there were 31 complaints of domestic violence and 19 were about harassment over WhatsApp. There were 19 complaints about stalking, 16 on blackmailing and harassing complaints and 10 each regarding misbehaving and cheating in the name of marriage. Similarly, nine were about sending obscene content while five were about social media harassment.

The 11 She Teams in Cyberabad, which are catering to the needs of an increasing number of women coming forward to register complaints, received complaints from women through various social media including Twitter and WhatsApp, QR Code and E-mail. The She Teams approached the complainants at their place of contact to make a complaint. All complaints were acted upon and disposed of on merits, according to an official statement.

Officials said based on verification of facts in the complaints, 33 cases were booked, including 13 FIRs and 20 petty cases. As many as 130 persons were counselled and 62 were warned to change their behaviour. During the same period, the teams conducted decoy operations and caught 44 persons on the spot and booked petty cases apart from stopping three child marriages.

The Cyberabad police requested women facing any kind of harassment to approach the She Teams by sending a message to WhatsApp No.9490617444 or can directly call the divisional She or Dial 100 or send e-mail to sheteam.cyberabad@gmail.com or Twitter (@sheteamcybd), Facebook (Women and ChildrenSafetyWing) and Instagram (womenandchildrensafetywingcybd).

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