Eve teasing on rise in Jammu

Ravi Krishnan Khajuria
Tribune News Service
Jammu, February 17: Even though Jammu SSP Manohar Singh had constituted an anti-eve teasing squad, the menace continues to haunt school and college-going girls in the winter capital.
“Street ‘romeos’ stalk us and pass obscene remarks, but we have to quietly tolerate their nonsense,” says a second-year student of Government College for Women, Parade.
Though girls should not keep quiet and “some of us do muster courage and lodge complaint with the police, most of the times we keep mum”, she adds. “Even if we try to teach a lesson to such elements, people in our so-called civilised society don’t come to our rescue leaving us alone to fend for ourselves”, says a student of the women’s college in Gandhi Nagar, who quoted a recent incident when two ruffians misbehaved with her friend while returning home after attending their tuition classes.
The police alone cannot end the menace and society at large has to put up a brave face against such elements, she says.
She, however, attributes the rise in eve teasing to the fast changing lifestyle in Jammu where people have been blindly following western lifestyles.
Sources in the police department admit that though the anti-eve teasing squad has been constituted, the practice continues in the city.
SSP Manohar Singh constituted anti-eve teasing and anti-goonda squads in September last year, they say, adding that the then inspector, who has been promoted as deputy superintendent of police, Rajni Sharma, and inspector Vishal Sharma headed the teams, respectively.
Though initially these squads launched a crusade against eve teasing, for the past few months such crimes are being handled by the police stations concerned.
However, a senior police officer says the anti- eve teasing squad has been doing its job efficiently, but isolated cases do happen. “One cannot expect that there would be 100 per cent check on eve teasing in a big and constantly expanding city like Jammu, which has witnessed a mushroom growth of schools, colleges and private coaching centres in the recent times,” he says.