Anti-obscene call cell in ghaziabad

Acting swiftly on the directions of the Uttar Pradesh director general of police, officials have constituted an anti-obscene call cell (AOCC) at the city's only women police station in Lohia Nagar.

Acting swiftly on the directions of the Uttar Pradesh director general of police, officials have constituted an anti-obscene call cell (AOCC) at the city's only women police station in Lohia Nagar. The cell will exclusively deal with matters related to obscene SMS, MMS and phone calls.

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The police said there have been many cases in which mobile phones have been used to harass women — either through obscene SMS/ MMS or calls. In Ghaziabad alone, 69 such cases (related to Section 294 of IPC) were reported in 2011, while 45 this year.

"The AOCC will hugely benefit women as it will entertain only such complaints. Earlier, the victims had to go to their local police station to lodge a complaint. Now, they can directly approach the women police station," said senior superintendent of police (SSP) Prashant Kumar.

Station officer of the women police station and a circle officer have been designated as nodal officer and monitoring officer, respectively, of AOCC.

The AOCC has come up in the city after its success at Sultanpur district in UP where arrangements and tie-ups were undertaken with the help of a private cellular operator. The Sultanpur cell disposed of around 150 of 161 complaints received in the past one-and-a-half months.

After the success in Sultanpur, the state police chief directed the district police chiefs to constitute the AOCC in their respective areas at the earliest. The police chiefs have also been directed to take the help from private cellular operators in the work.