And now, whistle away eve-teasers

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">With molestation cases and eve-teasing in the city going up, the new mantra for the women is self help. While some women are opening up to the idea of learning self-defense manoeuvers, others bank on self-defense gadgets to keep miscreants at bay. Starting from battery-operated alarms, whistles to pepper and chilli sprays many gadgets for self-defense are now available in the city, mainly at the Kidderpore and Chandni market.<br /><br />"I stock small battery-operated alarms," said Ranjit Poddar, a shop owner at Chandni market."These are actually very small noise-makers. And if you press the button on such a batter-operated personal alarm this will trigger off a loud, piercing sound. Though most of the women in the city are not aware about them, we hope that the sale of these will increase in the near future," he added.<br /><br />"Apart from battery-operated alarms, we retail lung-powered whistles, often called rape whistles," said J. Iqbal, a shopkeeper at Kidderpore market.<br /><br />"It''s a very good news that such things are available in Kolkata especially for women," said Damayanti Sen, DC DD special. Apart from the noise-makers like whistles and alarms aerosol or pepper sprays are also being used by women for self-defense. At the same time, certain women are devising their own ways of warding off attackers. "I keep table knife, pens and any thin object which can be improvised into a weapon," said Ranjita Mitra, an IT professional.<br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">subhra.sircar@timesgroup.com</span></div> </div>