The Delhi Police has been galvanised into urgent action after a 23-year-old medical student was brutally raped in a moving bus by six men on Sunday evening. Top cops of the city were summoned today by the Home Minister to explain what steps the police are taking to ensure that Delhi becomes safer. Delhi Chief Minister has also called a team of the police for meeting at 6 pm.
Some next steps that the police have announced:
They are identifying problem routes, which are poorly lit or isolated, near entertainment hubs like malls, areas that house restaurants and market places. The student was returning home with a male friend from a Saket mall, where they had watched a film, when the incident took place.
The police have said that Police Control Room or PCR patrolling will be intensified on main roads. The Delhi Police has 635 PCRs out at any time.
The police have also asked for 1000 more PCR vans. With the city expanding on the outskirts, the force needs to man about 100 entry points into Delhi.
The police will stop and pro-actively check cars and buses in which groups of men are traveling.
The Delhi Police has some non-field units which do not patrol at night. It will now press some of these into night patrolling to add more cops on the roads at night.
There are about 1,300 dark and poorly-lit stretches of road in the capital and the police have asked the Delhi government to provide street lighting immediately on these.
The transport department has been asked to ensure that transporters now only hire people who have the Public Service Badge, which is given by the police in acknowledgement of the fact that these men have been verified, and their background has been checked. Those transporters who are found not complying with this will be prosecuted.
The police also said that private buses need to be parked at their owners' premises; owners will be responsible for the vehicles at all times.
Some police men are also patrolling buses at night in plain clothes
No buses will be allowed to ply with tinted windows or blinds pulled across them. In the Sunday incident, the young woman was repeatedly raped and tortured and her friend was beaten for almost an hour as the bus drove along main roads of Delhi. The police have said that one of the reasons the crime went undetected was because the chartered bus, usually used to ferry school children, had tinted windows and blinds.
