Cops in India are revving up their crackdown on sexual harassers — by unleashing a badass all-gal motorcycle squad.
The lady cops will start patrolling the streets of Delhi next month in an attempt to curb rising crime against women in India’s “rape capital,” The Guardian reported.
“The motorbike force, with its hi-tech equipment, will increase visibility on the streets and reassure women,” said Dependra Pathak, chief spokesman for the Delhi police.
Called Raftaar or “speed,” the patrol will consist of 600 armed female officers on motorbikes, who’ll work in pairs to patrol crowded, cramped areas of the city.
Some Delhi streets are so narrow that sunlight barely touches them and crowds make it easier for perps to grope or sexually harass women unnoticed. Cops hope the new force will be able to reach these narrow spaces and travel swiftly through traffic jams.
“Because they will zip through narrow lanes and have GPS, they will have a faster response time than patrol vans,” Pathak said. “The plan is for them to be used mostly in areas such as university areas where there are a lot of female students.”
Police hope the new force will reassure women, who led protests against sexual assault after the horrific 2012 gang rape of a woman on a bus in New Delhi.
In 2016, over 2,150 rapes were recorded in Delhi, a 67 percent rise since 2012, according to police data reported by The Guardian.
A Thomson Reuters Foundation poll in December found that Delhi and Sao Paulo in Brazil were the world’s worst cities for sexual violence against women, earning the Indian metropolis the nickname, “rape capital.”
But some activists think the motorcycle squad is a kneejerk reaction to a vast systemic problem, where women are still bullied and harassed for reporting sex crimes.
“Crimes are rising because of poor law enforcement. Criminals know they can get away with it because police investigations are so shoddy that hardly anyone is convicted in the courts. We need a holistic action plan, not this kind of reaction,” said Ravi Kant, the president of the Shakti Vahini women’s group.
In May, the city of Jaipur, the capital of India’s Rajasthan state also formed an all-female motorcycle unit to deal with sexual violence and harassment.
