Terming the incident of gang-rape of paramedical student as "turning point", Delhi Police Chief Neeraj Kumar Friday elaborated steps initiated by the force to ensure safety of women in the national capital.
Among the measures, Delhi Police has made its helpline functional 24x7, which earlier used to operate till 8 pm, and assured that "jurisdiction" issue will not be a hindrance whenever prompt response is required from the force.
"Every women police desk is being provided with an exclusive telephone line. Most of the police stations have already been provided with this facility, some are left but within a week all the women helpdesk would get their dedicated phones," Kumar said while addressing the annual press conference by the Delhi police chief.
He said if a women complainant approaches a police station, jurisdiction would never be an issue as "the complainant has to be dealt with there."
"In fact, I have gone a step further and said that not only women complainant but any complaint pertaining to crime if it requires prompt response, must be responded to immediately without the issue of jurisdiction, which can be decided later," he said.
"We have a system of Zero FIR, but our idea is action," referring to the practice of registering FIR and forwarding it to concerned police station.
The top Delhi police official said there was 1.75 per cent increase in crimes in 2012.
There were 54,287 cases in 2012 as compared to 53,353 in 2011. There were 706 cases of rape, 543 of murder (521 in 2011) vehicle theft 14,391 (14,668 in 2011) and snatching 1,440 (1476 in 2011), he said.
On the issue of women being discouraged by police from registering complaints by tutoring them it would bring bad name to their families, the Delhi Police Chief said the instructions were "loud and clear."
