What have you done to prevent crimes against women: HC asks Centre, Delhi govt

The Delhi high court on Wednesday asked the Centre and city government to submit a comprehensive report on the measures undertaken to prevent crime against women after the 2012 December 16 gang rape case

The High Court on Wednesday asked the Centre and Delhi government to submit a comprehensive report on the measures undertaken to prevent crime against women after the 2012 December 16 gang rape case.

Immediately after the December 16 gang rape case, the high court on its own initiated a public interest litigation (PIL) with the aim to improve safety of women in Capital.(Reuters File Photo)

A bench of justice BD Ahmed and justice Ashutosh Kumar said despite numerous directions from the court the cases of crime against women have not gone down but increased.

The court directed additional solicitor general Sanjay Jain and Delhi government senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra to submit a comprehensive report on the action taken on the various directions passed by the court so far.

Immediately after the December 16 gang rape case, the high court on its own initiated a public interest litigation (PIL) with the aim to improve safety of women in Capital.

The court is looking into the issue of increasing the number of police personnel in Delhi, installation of CCTV cameras, street lighting and identifying dark spots, among others.

In the last hearing, the court directed the city police to identify areas where it is necessary to set up more streetlights based on the crime mapping exercise it had earlier conducted.

“Studies across the world have suggested that dark public areas, where there are insufficient streetlights are crime prone,” the bench remarked as it directed all civic agencies to put a logo and telephone complaint number on each street light pole under their responsibility.

Advocate Meera Bhatia, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae in the case, said the issue of installation of CCTV cameras in the capital has been put in the backburner as both the city government and police have not done anything on it. Bhatia said the CCTV cameras have not even been installed most of the police stations here.