'Recruitment of women in police force painfully slow'

Recruitment of women in the police force is moving at a snail's pace with a meager 17,200 being drafted in 2016.

The 'Data on Police Organisations 2017' revealed that there are 1.40 lakh women personnel in state police forces in 2016, while it was 1.22 lakh in 2015. In terms of ratio, their numbers rose by just .18% in 2016 to 7.28% from 7.10% in 2015.

The report compiled by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) also said only 42,666 women were added in the five-year period from 2012.

Noting that paucity of female cops has a direct impact on the overall increase of crimes against women, the report acknowledged that adequate women police personnel is the way to stop women from becoming vulnerable to crime.

Like in previous years, it criticized the tendency to deploy women only in security checks and underlined the need to put them on frontline duty, pointing out that a mere 10.62% (14,892) women are in the rank of assistant sub inspectors or above.

The report also revealed that 1.25 lakh of female cops are either constables or head constables.