Centre disbands task force on women safety

Decision is anti-women, says panel for women

The Centre has disbanded the Special Task Force on women safety, set up after the December 16 gang-rape, the Delhi Commission for Women was informed this week.

Terming the Centre’s decision as “anti-women”, the DCW said it was the only forum in the capital for coordination between Centre and state on the issue of women safety.

In a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, DCW chief Swati Maliwal said the ministry’s claim that the role of STF was over is “unacceptable” and displays absolute lack of knowledge of ground realities.

She appealed to Singh to review his decision.  The commission has received a letter from the ministry about its decision to disband it.

The STF was set up in 2013 after the Nirbhaya gang-rape in Delhi and was mandated to meet fortnightly to review action by Delhi Police and the city government.

The commission said it was “strange” that the Home Ministry has requested LG Najeeb Jung to reconstitute a task force under his chairmanship consisting of representatives of the Delhi Police and the city government.

“This is strange as the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor has once previously failed to heed to a request to set up a committee on women safety in November 2015 and had instead delegated the important task to the chief secretary of the Delhi Government. It appears that everyone in the Central Government is keen on passing the responsibility of addressing the issue of women safety to some other authority,” she said.

Spike in crime
Crime against women and girls is increasing and in May 2016 alone, Delhi witnessed 201 cases of rape of which 82 were of minors.

In 31 cases, the victims were between the ages of two and 13 years, according to information with the commission.

Maliwal had earlier sent two notices to the Union Home Secretary to make the STF more effective by holding meetings regularly.

The STF has met only 12 times in the past three and a half years and has been repeatedly discussing the same issues instead of taking concrete steps, the commission had said.