NEW DELHI: At Greater Kailash police station, you see an unusual sight these days. At the public facilitation desk, three women constables can be seen in the non-policing acts of cutting and sewing pieces of cloth on a machine. The women are stitching face
masks
to be given free to those who can’t afford to buy one. In the past week, the trio has fabricated over 200 masks and distributed them.
Constable Gudiya Devi, 26, cuts the cloth — pink in colour as symbolic of woman power —into double-layered mask shapes and passes them on to colleague constable Neelam Toppo, who checks the symmetry of the two layers and hands them to constable Sunni Devi. It is Devi’s job to stitch the mask on the sewing machine, and she happily does it because she has a passion for tailoring.
The finished products are soaked in a solution of water and sodium hypochlorite to sanitise them. They are then hung out to dry and ironed before being readied for distribution. The masks are distributed to the needy and residents of slum clusters. Some of them are garbage collectors or sweepers who visit vulnerable areas. It’s a boon for them that their homemade mask is washable and reusable.
The process begins every day at 9am and ends by 6pm. When asked what prompted the women to make masks, mandatory now for anyone outside their homes in Delhi, they said a person recently called the police control room to say masks were not available. “We were worried because a mask is important in the current situation,” said Gudiya. “My friend Sunni immediately told station house officer Som Paruthi that she had a sewing machine at home. The SHO sent a car to bring the machine to the police station.”
Cloth for the masks was a problem because all shops were closed in the lockdown. The SHO, therefore, asked the local residents’ welfare association to see if any member had a cloth business. But before the RWA members donated two bolts of pink textile, the masks were initially made from the white cloth used by police to seal seized items.
Gudiya and Devi are engaged wholly on the job, while the third person helping them depends on the woman officer who is on duty. In between sewing the masks, they also carry out the regular duty of calling up senior citizens and checking on their health and needs.
Inspired by the policewomen, Meenu, the teacher wife of the SHO, has also started making masks at home. “When my children are sleeping, I use the time to sew masks, aiming every day to make at least a dozen of them to be handed over to the police for distribution,” said Meenu.