Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Thousands of women who are victims of domestic violence, dowry harassment and other marriage-related issues are suffering as the Police Headquarters has shut counselling centres at women police station located in all the districts of Madhya Pradesh.
The cases of women approaching women police station with complaints that their husband or in-laws were harassing them for dowry or subjecting them to violence or that their husbands were having extramarital affairs or were drunkards, were referred to counselling centre by incharge of women police station.
Bhopal's women police station (Mahila Thana) had eight counsellors of whom two to three worked everyday, each of them handled about 10 cases a day. That meant 30 cases a day or 600 to 1,000 every month.
Bhopal was the first district in the state to get a dedicated police station for women in 1998 and a counselling centre there. The idea was to resolve disputes between married couples through counseling and thus save marriages and prevent marital disputes from becoming police or court cases. In Bhopal alone, thousands of marriages were saved in last 27 years by counselling the couples and their family members.
However, the counselling centres were shut abruptly. 'We were simply told that we need not come from next day. We all were doing work without payment,' counsellor Mohib Ahmed said. 'I get calls from women victims for counselling. Sometimes, the number of calls is 10 in a day.'
Cousellor Mekhla Shrivastava said they held three sittings in each case. 'In the first sitting, we heard both the parties together. In the second session, we talked with them separately and in the third we tried to work out a compromise,' she said. 'Now, we get calls from women victims to whom we counselled earlier. They want to know why has the facility been shut.'
'Centres were helpful'
The counselling centre has been closed on orders of PHQ. Counselling was helpful in solving marital disputes. If we received, say, 25 applications in a day, only five ended up as FIRs. The rest were resolved. Now, we are forwarding complaints to Gaurvai and DALSA but they lack the capacity to deal with so many cases. As I know, court had asked police department to pay honorarium to counsellors but there was no budget for it. So, counselling centres were closed. --- Shilpa Kaurav, incharge, Mahila Thana, Bhopal
