Women police station turns to be a decorative department

Team Herald

PANJIM: In a State where women’s safety has been a constant concern, the doors of the police stations—where distressed victims resort to with a hope that their culprits will be brought to book—remains closed more often than not. Around 8pm or later, the doors are usually shut with barely one or two staff on night duty. 

“It operates just like any other government department except on the days when they receive case investigations of which drag till night. You won’t find their doors open after dusk giving a wrong impression to a victim who wishes to lodge her complaint,” said a regular visitor to the police station, handling related offenses. 

Sidelined on most days of the year; police station’s night shift staff perform their duty behind closed doors. 

Located between the Panjim town police station and the Panjim Traffic Cell (temporarily shifted to St Cruz outpost) of the vast building that will soon undergo transformation, the women police station is shrunk to suffocate. Acute shortage of staff, space crunch and no space for victim’s privacy mars the functioning of the police station. 

“There is no minimum deployment, particularly during the late hours. It is the constables who are mostly on night duty while in the day some of their seniors come to the police station to only mark their attendance. They are barely seen at their work station,” said a source adding, “How much can a Police Inspector handle? She needs more hands.”

Some, the sources add, take undue advantage of the short staff by remaining away most of the time. “This practice should end. Superiors should ensure discipline and not give attention only on special occasions or special drives.”

It is learnt that the staff is more interested to ‘counsel’ a victim than registering FIR against the accused/suspect. “The staff is busy trying to reconcile the victim and the suspected accused than registering an FIR, especially in cases of domestic violence. Registering FIR in a senior offense is hardly recorded, but disposal of applications (complaints) exceed,” sources said. PI of the police station remains unavailable for any comment.