Delhi police’s progressive initiative, Operation Nirbheek, which was meant to encourage school girls to come forward and share their intimate problems, now lies abandoned.
The Nirbheek complaint box
Delhi police’s progressive initiative, Operation Nirbheek, which was meant to encourage school girls to come forward and share their intimate problems — things they found hard to talk about — meets the same fate as most government schemes — abandoned!
The scheme was launched in 2015 to improve safety and security of girls in schools — to encourage them to speak up, to expose sexual predators.
Under the programme, police officials were to visit schools that fell under their jurisdiction and conduct interactive sessions to spread awareness about sexual harassment and crimes. Complaint boxes were installed in each school for the children to file written complaints if they wanted to. The SHOs of the area were made accountable and a female constable from the local police station was to make weekly recce to the school to take both verbal and written grievances.
But now the boxes present a sorry picture of administrative apathy — most of them have been left open and are damaged. The children are not even aware of the boxes and the sensitisation campaigns have slowly fizzled out.
Principal of a school in Dwarka, requesting anonymity, said, “These boxes are just there — we have never seen any police official collecting the complaints from the box. When the whole thing started, they did come to speak about the initiative, but now no one cares! This was a good initiative and it should have been followed up.”
In fact, according to sources, the scheme was gaining popularity as the students had started to drop their complaints in the box — they were learning to speak up without the fear of public shaming.
But the whole initiative just lost steam somewhere.
A parent, Shanti Mishra, said, “Seeing this box at the gates, I wanted to know it's purpose. When I came to know what it stood for, I found it strange that the box had been left open. The boxes should be locked, and the police must ensure the complaints are taken. The school should also sensitise the children to use the box.”
Social activist Madhuri Varshney added, “This scheme could have been a major tool in fighting child sexual abuse. The female constable appointed from the thana should have encouraged the girls to leave their complaints — to use the system. The awareness campaigns should have been more vigorous. But unfortunately, everything is just a lip service here! The police should think about this initiative more seriously.”
