Is Kolkata safe for a woman ?

 

Kolkata was hitherto a safe city for women. But as time changes things also change along with it.

Recently, Kolkata has become entirely unsafe and does not assure women’s safety. This has been proved through various kinds of events taking place around us in our society. Nonstop harassments, lewd comments, street molestations are taking place and thereby the freedom of women’s movement along with some basic rights are diminishing day by day.

The Government is playing a vital role in order to check the status and to implement important steps to control this continuous harassment taking place in the city. One important decision that has been taken by the government and the police force in Kolkata is that, “women’s safety should be assured during the puja festival. Now, why especially during the puja festival? This is because both north and south Kolkata gets filled with various kinds of people who do pandal hopping, etc.  During that point of time, there can be a high chance of any kind of offences   against women.  Hence a good decision has been taken by the government that each police kiosk should include police and if any kind of illegal act takes place, the woman immediately can go and file a case against the offender.

We have all read about the trauma the French woman went through in Kolkata. This incident took place on July 4, 2013.  Here, not only the woman was harassed by the molesters but the man who was accompanying her was equally harassed by the molesters.

Another incident which is common now in today’s time in Kolkata is about the “biker gangs” on streets. A new fashion has taken place called “bike racing” where the group of biker’s race right from the evening to late night (6 to 12 or beyond) and harass women.  But how? -  While racing, some of the gangs pass lewd comments and whistle on seeing the girls while they cross the road. Bikers not only harass the women but also violate the traffic signals.  To prevent this act, the government came up with the decision of patrolling in certain places so that they can stop the unnecessary nuisance act.  A woman, who was travelling from the Forum mall after watching a movie, at midnight with her family, had faced a similar incident on her way to house during which some of the biker gangs chased the car and tried to violate her privacy. This victim later on came up with some questions related to freedom of women’s movement on the road. All these questions were asked to the police of Kolkata, which was being published in the newspaper.

Also, various other sexual harassments   take place in Kolkata. One of the main incidents based on sexual harassment was the park street rape case. The victim was raped by a group of men in the moving car. The woman then went up to the media and discussed about certain facts. It has been noticed that, unlike this woman, many women are not strong enough to own up and share their experiences with the world. You need lots of guts to do that and most of the women never come out with their experiences in the media.

Hence it’s a shame that in this time and age, when we emphasis more towards the gender equality, despite that still women faces these kinds of unnecessary harassment by some men. “Why this narrowness towards women” in society is still a complicated question to which there seem to be no answer. Therefore for all the above mentioned situations all women need a support given by the community as a whole.