Helpline 103 will now be for all women in Maharashtra……..Somendra Sharma
Mumbai: On the International Womens Day this year, the state home department has a gift for the fair sex across the state. The helpline 103 for women, senior citizens and children, which completed two years last month, will now be functional across Maharashtra by April this year.
Additional chief secretary (home) Chandra Iyengar said home minister RR Patil had agreed to start the helpline across the state.
My request to police is that they should seriously follow up the cases registered by women through this helpline and ensure that the complainants do not have to dial it again for the same issue, Iyengar said.
My request to police is that they should seriously follow up the cases registered by women through this helpline and ensure that the complainants do not have to dial it again for the same issue, Iyengar said.
A review meeting, organised by the Mumbai Police at the Police Club in Azad Maidan on Sunday, was attended by Iyengar, Nandita Shah from NGO Akshara, police chief D Sivanandhan and other senior police officers.
Sivanandhan said: The safety of women, children and senior citizens has been my priority ever since I took charge as the commissioner of police. It has been learnt that about 90% of crimes against women and children are being done by people known to them. Hence, their counselling is very important so that they could report the crimes against them to the police.
He added that the police response time to any call on the helpline is between six to seven minutes.
We have other initiatives such as www.copconnect.in and www.hamarisuraksha.com. Nearly 30,000 citizens, including servants have been registered with hamari suraksha, said Sivanandhan.
Shah said: The helpline was first started in Thane in 2007, and after the molestation incidents outside JW Marriot hotel in 2008, it got started in Mumbai on February 28, 2008.