In 2014, I wrote with some pride about a project called "Nirbhaya Keralam, Surakshita Keralam", which was entrusted to me by the new Home Minister of Kerala for the safety of women. I am sorry for writing that post. I am sorry I felt happy and privileged then that at last I got a posting whereby I can do the work I always wanted to do- help distressed women. I am sorry I spent 72 hours preparing a project which was approved by the State Government, because the project did not materialise. I am sorry that I witnessed the death of this project when it was just 5 months old! I am sorry, dear Jisha, for probably, had this project been alive, you would still be alive too!
On February 2014, this project was inaugurated with huge pomp in Ernakulam. I was ADGP in Vigilance & anti-corruption Bureau then. I didn't know then that my shift from there a few days after inauguration of Nirbhaya Keralam had anything to do with some raids I conducted and some cases I registered. I thought, foolishly, that my expertise was required to make Nirbhaya Keralam project a success. I took charge as the one woman team of project Nirbhaya and waited for the state police chief or government to post others or give me a room to sit. After much fighting, I got a room in police head quarters and a confidential assistant who could not type a word in English. My numerous visits to the Minister, Home Secretary and DGP made me hopeful, promises were made. I was asked to go ahead with the recruitment, training and crime mapping of vulnerable areas. I was promised reimbursement of expenses.
So, I went ahead and conducted a few public meetings, calling women from all over the district and talking about this amazing project that would make them safe and secure. I intended to train 100 women in each district and make them train the other women. I told them that I will give them identity cards, SIM cards, a badge and an overcoat they should wear while on duty, a kit containing information about law and how to connect with police and social welfare department, money for traveling and victim assistance and a remuneration to boot. All this was in my proposal and a budgetary allocation of 77 lakh was given for Nirbhaya Keralam of police department too.
Ernakulam was selected to start the pilot project and I recruited 99 smart and willing women from the ages between 25 and 55. I started giving them classes on law and unarmed combat and took them to police stations, women's cells, Nirbhaya homes and juvenile homes to familiarise them with women's issues. I prepared a survey questionnaire and taught them how to get information from women in rural areas so that we could find out unreported crimes.
I also contacted C-DAC and requested them to make an application that can be worn by women as a bracelet, pendant on a chain, a brooch or a watch. Dr Ramani of C-DAC was immensely helpful and the team did develop these things. It was successfully demonstrated before selected women and police officers. I planned to develop these and distribute them free of cost to women who needed them. They had in built GPRS/GPS and with the aid of google map, we could trace the location of the registered user of this gadget at the control room or police station. If the wearer of this gadget gives a long press on its button, an alert will go and the nearest patrol could reach the spot in 5 minutes. I preferred such an application on ornaments because an attacker usually takes the mobile phone of the victim, but he will ever know that she can get assistance by pressing on her jewellery! If Jisha, who was carrying a pen camera, had such a gadget, she would be still alive!
By the time three months have passed, I was still the only official in the project, money was not coming and I had spent over 60,000 rupees from my pocket! One thing was not lacking though- the number of complaints that were piling up before me. Around 210 persons visited me a week with their problems and I was finding it extremely difficult to help them all. Women thought that I was posted to take care of their personal issues, so a school girl who had crush for some boy, a married woman who had relationship with a married man, a divorcee who wanted back her husband and a woman who feared the neighbour's dog...all poured in seeking my help, while I sat frustrated at the path to doom that Nirbhaya Keralam project was progressing.
Soon, I found that no one was much interested in any issue relating to women in this state. Or they just didn't care. No support nor funds were there for this project. When the volunteers started to ask me for money and other things, I asked them to wait for some time and reassured that everything will be fine soon. I fought with the poor DGP a couple of times, not realising that he too was helpless in this. He gave me three women police officers to assist me in settling complaints of women who poured in to see me. I wondered what the women's cells, women help desks, women police stations were actually doing if all women from even Kasargod are coming all the way to Trivandrum with hopes that ADGP Nirbhaya ( me) will solve their problems.
Who will not get frustrated and fed up in such a situation?
So when the Transport Minister called me to ask whether I was willing to go as Transport Commissioner, I felt relieved and said yes immediately. At that time, the then transport commissioner was on leave and the department needed someone. Soon, there was an order posting me as transport commissioner and Previous transport commissioner as ADGP Nirbhaya. Within a week, he got a transfer as vigilance officer in KSEB and the post become vacant. When another officer returned from central deputation, he was posted there first. But in a week, he too got shifted to the post of ADGP Head quarters. Since July 2014, Nirbhaya project was on a comma, soon, it was buried alive too. Poor, poor Nirbhaya. Poor women Kerala who get raped every often.
Poor Jisha. Wasn't there a Supreme Court guideline that the victim's name should not be revealed? Wasn't that why Jyoti became Nirbhaya? Jisha has a face and name, thanks to the media, she is not the Kuruppampady girl. Govinda chamies are thriving happily. I am sorry, dear Jisha that you were taken away untimely and so cruelly from this world. I only hope that you are happy and loved in your new world. I also hope that such incidents do not happen again in this state which calls itself God's own.
I am truly and genuinely sorry!
