Police Didi gets man arrested for molestation

Barely days since the Mumbai police launched ‘Police Didi’ in eastern suburbs, the new initiative has already seen success in the form of RCF police station arresting a man for allegedly molesting a seven-year-old.

‘Police Didi’, aimed at reducing the number of child sexual abuse cases, was first started in zone 6 including areas like Govandi, Cheetah Camp, Deonar and Shivaji Nagar. Incidentally, zone 6 features among the top three places registering cases under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).

The initiative has 93 trained police officers, most of them female, to act as sole contact to educate children against sexual predators and make them comfortable to approach authorities in case of assault.

Ashwini Khambe, a police didi attached to RCF police, received a call a day after she met some children in the area.

“I got a call one evening from a young girl who told me that she had met me a day before at school and that I was her police didi. When I asked her what happened, she told me that a man had been touching her inappropriately since many months. She narrated everything,” said Ms Khambe.

Ms Khambe then informed her seniors who arrested the accused, identified as Mangesh Dighaokar (30). “The man was her neighbour and would find ways to touch her genital areas whenever she left the house for school or while playing,” she said.

Police didi stickers have been distributed to all police stations; these stickers are stuck to the inside of children’s notebooks or bags so they can directly call officers.

Police didi is the brainchild of Sangramsingh Nishandar, DCP (Operations), and was launched under him during his recently concluded tenure as DCP of zone 6. “We have covered all schools — nearly 249 of them — including private and government schools, and have taken the help of NGOs to train our officials in talking to children and dealing with such cases. These officers then visit schools and talk to children in all standards and make their talks engaging using audio visuals, cartoons etc. so that the children remember all of it,” he said. The initiative will soon be launched in all areas of the city.