With slow justice delivery system, Ggn cops now act as counsellors to curb crimes, stop families from breaking
GURUGRAM: Gurugram Police sources highlight that domestic violences and eve-teasings form maximum number of cases of crimes against women in the city and are a bigger challenge for officials to tackle.
Long court proceedings and personal issues involved often prevent women form lodging a formal complaint with the cops.
Now, to tackle the issue of domestic violence and eve-teasing, Gurugram Police officials have donned the role of counsellors.
The role of the police counsellors is to hold consultations with the couples affected by domestic violence and advise them about the steps towards happy marriage.
Functioning for over a year, the Gurugram Police have opened three sub-branches as counselling units. There are plans to open more such branches in the city.
There are twelve police officials who have been employed as counsellors. Besides being counsellors, they do their regular duties.
Providing the list of people visiting these units, a senior police official said that in 2016, there were more than 500 couples who were counselled by the police.
The officials maintain that all sections of society of the city have come up to the counsellors for advice in sustaining their relationships.
The success stories of the counselling units have resulted in Gurugram Police also counselling the eve-teasers, guiding them towards being better citizens.
Police sources highlighted that since justice delivery mechanism in the city faces infrastructural challenges, these counselling units were also proving to be useful to stop piling up of cases.
A senior police official mentioned that in 2016 cops were able to nab 36 alleged rapists within 48 hours but long court proceedings have resulted in them still not being punished fully.
“Domestic violence is a major challenge in the city. Daily we get complaints of domestic violence across different police stations. Most of the people refrain from lodging official complaints which pushed us to form the counselling units,” said a senior police official on the condition of anonymity.
“This is one aspect of the job of Gurugram Police which many citizens may not be aware of. I really feel that our officials have done a pretty good job by saving the marriages and also prevented families from breaking. We have counselled people who are rickshaw pullers to people who travel in Jaguars. However, counselling units should not give an impressions that we will be soft on the culprits,” added the official.