After the recent incident of an BPO employee being raped and murdered in Bangalore, there were a lot of mails floating around, talking about the safety of women, who work during late hours. Most of the mails talked about how women need to be careful, dress properly and if possible do not step out of the house after dark. Some of them spoke about learning some physical skills to overpower the attacker or carrying stuff like pepper spray, or smart moves like throwing your bag in one direction and running in the opposite one.
But this one piece of information that landed in my mailbox was worth sharing. This talks about a basic right that every woman in this country has:
“ the law clearly states that between 6 pm and 6am, a woman has the right to REFUSE to go to the Police Station, even if an arrest warrant has been issued against her. It is a procedural issue that a woman can be arrested between 6pm and 6 am, ONLY if she is arrested by a woman officer and taken to an ALL WOMEN police station. And if she is arrested by a male officer, it has to be proven that a woman officer was on duty at the time of arrest.”
I am not sure how many women are aware of this, I was not aware of this law, neither did most of the women around me. Apparently this is to prevent any officers on duty from exploiting women, under the guise of law or should I say lawlessness.
6 comments:
Thats a nice peice of information for everyone!!!.. to know.
I feel most of the womens are not aware of this law. Just by spreading this message, we can make aware women about this law, which will be helpful for women hence forth.
Shows u r unaware of the law :). What about places where there are no women police officers ? If a woman(against whom an arrest warrant is pending)refuses to go a police station quoting this rule she can be foisted with a case of contempt of court plus issued a non-bailable warrant. "And if she is arrested by a male officer, it has to be proven that a woman officer was on duty at the time of arrest". Not many women officers work in the night shifts and it is specified so, unless she is the rank of inspector and above !!
Dont just quote what mails say, do some research before blogging it out !!
I want to comment on what annonymous said if she has not posted this information we are not aware of information which you mentioned in your comment.It is not possible to research on every subject . Anyway if her information about the law is wrong then you can say that she shud first research on this topic.Knowing about the law is good because if anyone got into this situation then atleast he or she can gather information about it.Our police are also not aware of all the law.
Pragya,The point is knowing the law alone wont help and in no way,can make you safe !!! It might at the best provide a topic for discussion and not a solution. A lot of us are in a much safer position than any of the people at the lower strata of soceity. Attention was generated only bcos Prathibha was a BPO employee!!! Can u imagine the number of women raped or killed in the lower strata of the soceity !!! What help will they get by quoting these laws ???? nothing
Hi Anuradha,
It was very thoughtful of you to share such information with everyone through your bolg. But as comented by "Anonymous" we need to do some research before posting this on the blog or forwarding such emails.
What I normally do whenever i get such emails is google one of the line in the email and I look what i found for this one:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/right-to-refuse-police.html
The message claimed that the girl was raped in Pune. Normally when such incedents occur ( one had happend in Mumbai some time back), they are not spared by the Indian media. But i dont remember of hearing or reading of any such incident lately. Which is a clear indication that this could be a hoax email. Also as mentioned on this website, the law doesnt state that the female has right to refuse arrest, it states that arrest should be avoided unless it is done by women polic officer.
Regards,
Rashmi.
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