Punjab today became the first state in the country to launch Mobile Women Commando Squads to curb the crime against women and speed up police response and help in prevention of crime against women, assist the victims and perpetrators to the book. Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal today flagged off the Women Commando Squads for all Corporation Towns and big cities and said that the state would cover all cities with Women Commando Squads within three months. He said that this initiative has been necessitated keeping in view the rising crime against women all over the country. “We have given intensive training to Women Commandos so that could deal with any eventuality,” Mr. Badal informed. The Deputy Chief Minister said that the pilot project of Women Armed Special Protection Squads (WASPS) launched last week in Bathinda Zone was quiet encouraging as per the feed back received by him. “Women are increasingly becoming confident to approach women commandos to report incidents of eve teasing and other crime against women and seeing the success of this pilot project, it is being replicated throughout the state,” the Deputy Chief Minister informed the media after flagging off the Commando Squads.
Badal said the on receipt of any complaint to Women Helpline both mobile teams and PCR personal would respond. He said that these mobile teams would be deployed at women colleges, schools, co-ed colleges, girls hostels, working women hostels, busy markets, malls, cinemas and other sensitive points. “These teams would instil a sense of security and provide a safe living and working environment to women and protect them against offences like eve teasing, molestation, stalking and chain snatching etc,” he informed. Mr. Badal hoped that constitution and deployment of these teams would result in improving the police response to curb such crimes. He described this confidence building measure for curbing crime against women.Emphasising on increasing the strength of women in the police, Mr. Badal said that Punjab would soon start a recruitment drive to select 500 women DSPs and ASIs, who would be incharge of women police stations. Mr. Badal said that his aim was to increase the strength of women in Punjab Police from 3% to 15% and then to 33%.
Answering a question regarding the demand of Capital Punishment for crimes like rape, Mr. Badal said that he was for death penalty for rapes like that happened to five year old girl in Delhi. On a question regarding Wealth Tax on Agriculture Sector, Mr. Badal said that the imposition of wealth tax on the farming community by Congress led UPA Government has exposed the anti-farmer face of this Government. He said that it was ironical that if a multicrore showroom in a city was on rent, it would not be covered under the definition of wealth tax as it was ‘productive asset’ but a farmer, who was feeding the country by sowing crop on a land near city would have to pay Rs. 1 lakh tax against his total income of Rs. 30,000. Mr. Badal said that the Shiromani Akali Dal would be vociferously opposing this draconian move and raise this issue in both houses of Parliament.Reiterating the resolve of the Punjab Government to act tough against drug peddlers, Mr. Badal said that during last week alone more than 875 drug pushers have been arrested due to sustained campaign of Punjab Police and the state Security Agencies have made record recovery of narcotics.
Earlier Mr. Badal flanked by Mr. Sumedh Singh, Director General of Police, Punjab flagged off the Women Commando Squads for all Corporation Towns. The Deputy Chief Minister also interacted with the women commandos and they told him that they were excited for new challenging job.