City cops have no panel to address harassment complaints

The internal complaints committee, which is a mandatory requirement to deal with such cases as per the Vishakha guidelines has been defunct in the city police department. Deputy Commissioner, Headquarters is the designated head of this committee and this post has been remaining vacant for most part of the year. 

So victims, who are not willing to submit to such coercion, take extreme steps while the perpetrators continue to escape legal actions. The suicide attempt of a woman Armed Reserve constable a few days back was the last such incident reported in the city. Even when an officer was posted as Deputy Commissioner, Headquarters, the committee never conducted its mandatory monthly meetings. Highly placed sources told DTNext that the committee hardly heard any cases of sexual harassment at workplace submitted by women cops. 

“Whenever there is a complaint of sexual harassment, senior police officials summon both the accused and the victim and broker peace between them. Most often, such interventions turn out to be in favour of he accused and the victims continue to suffer in silence,” a senior police official said. 

Many junior-level woman cops say that the sexual harassment side of a complaint had been publicised widely in the case of the woman AR constable who attempted suicide a couple of days ago. The woman cop, a resident of Nariangad police colony, who is married but living alone, had consumed sleeping pills alleging torture by senior police officer. She got discharged from the hospital on Saturday and the authorities have allowed her to go on leave. “Sexual harassment at work place in police department is a common affair. However, most of the victims are scared to even make a complaint fearing harassment at the hands of senior police officials,” another woman cop said. 

When the woman constable attempted suicide, the Chennai city police top brass was quick to defend a Deputy Commissioner, against whom the woman had made complaints of harassment. Denying the allegations, a senior police official told DTNext that the woman cop had attempted suicide after she was denied leave to go to her hometown.