CAWC failed to prove any crime against women

Mumbai: Mumbai police’s crime against women cell (CAWC) has failed to prove in court any crime against women since 2015, statistics show, despite the national uproar over an increasing number of gender crimes.

Information that activist Jeetendra Ghadge obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI) shows a revealing lack of efficiency on the part of the CAWC, which is also affected by a number of staff vacancies.

The CAWC registered 1,102 cases since it opened the doors in 2013 as a friendly wing of the police that women can approach without the inhibition they feel with the regular police stations.

Among the cases that the CAWC registered, 401 cases pertained to domestic violence and 166 cases of sexual harassment. Among the cases, 102 were against wives.

The data revealed that the CAWC failed to take any case to the conviction stage, though it brought up for prosecution 15 cases since 2015, of which 11 are pending in court. In four cases, the court acquitted the accused.

Though there are 77 posts in the office, it has only 31 staff. In place of the required 12 senior inspectors, there are only three senior inspectors and one assistant police inspector.

“The ’Death to rapist’ slogan is not the solution to control crimes against women,” Mr Ghadge said.

“There is already capital punishment provision for murder cases, still 30,400 murders have been registered in 2016. What we need is urgent reforms in our criminal justice system especially in the procedure from filing a complaint. The current system is full of loopholes which is failing to create fear of law among the criminals.”