In a first, women police personnel go on night patrol

HUBBALLI: The women police officers of Gokul Road police station celebrated International Women's Day in a very different way by assisting in night beat duty from Tuesday at 10 pm to Wednesday at 6 am.
For the first time, women staff including the ASI and police constables attached to Gokul road police station took up the challenge and performed night beat duty by visiting each and every corner of sensitive places of their police station limit from dawn to dusk.
Radha Gungarkoppa, ASI, Gokul Police station told TOI that the entire women staff including 6 police constables performed night beat duty fearlessly and with enthusiasm.
“Women staff are usually not involved in the night beat system and work in the office and handle office duties at night. Only male staff are on night patrol at all police stations. For a change, the senior officers deployed the women staff members to perform night beats in our police station limits to mark women’s day,” she added.
“While a woman constable performed the duty of a sentry officer in the police station, others were on night beat duty. Women staff visited hotels, bars and restaurants, asking them to close by 11 to 11.30 pm as per the order. They also patrolled all nooks and corners of our police station to ensure there was no law and order problem. We also checked isolated and sensitive places to ensure that there were no untoward incidents. We patrolled and also worked with the Chalukya team on night patrolling,” she said.
Besides this, they also checked more than 104 night beat points and completed the e-beat formalities linked to their beats as part of their night beat system. Usually, women ASIs are assigned to beat point checking duty once a week and they are not assigned to night patrol duty.“It was a challenging task and we gained valuable knowledge that will help us tackle different crimes in the future," ASI Radha said.
JM Kalimirchi, police inspector at Gokul road police station said: “In order to encourage women staff to work on par with men staff on the occasion of women’s day, we made arrangements to involve them in night beat duty. All women staff completed their duty successfully. It also helped instill confidence among women staff that they can also work on night beat duty, he said.