An inter-departmental meeting of the Punjabgovernment on Monday decided on a slew of measures to strengthen theinvestigation and prosecution machinery for handling criminal offences againstwomen and children, including establishment of nine more fast-track courtsunder the POCSO Act and Sexual Assault Response Teams in all the 27 policedistricts of the state to deal with cases of sexual attacks on women.
The decisions are in line with recentdirectives of Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh for ensuring time-boundinvestigations in cases of crime against women and children, and improving theprosecution rate in such cases.
At a high-level virtual meeting, ChiefSecretary Vini Mahajan directed officials to clear the pendency of casesrelated to women and children from the period 2016 to 2020 through qualityinvestigations on priority. She also directed the officials to lay downStandard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to fast-track the investigation of sexualoffences against women and children by specifying the roles andresponsibilities of all departments with regard to such cases.
Mahajan also ordered the constitution of aState Level Committee, headed by the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) – Home,to review the monthly progress of pending cases. She directed the Health,Police and Prosecution departments to appoint a nodal officer for betterinter-departmental synergy to deal with investigation of criminal cases relatedto women and child, and also manage the necessary programmes for training ofpersonnel in this regard.
The meeting was attended by Director General ofPolice (DGP) Punjab Dinkar Gupta, Principal Secretary Social Security and Women& Child Development Raji P Shrivastava, Principal Secretary Health andFamily Welfare Hussan Lal and Secretary Home Affairs Arun Sekhri. ADGP Womenand Child Affairs Gurpreet Kaur Deo, Director Punjab Police Academy (PPA)Phillaur Anita Punj and Director Prosecution and Litigation Satnam Singh Kalerwere also present during the meeting.
The Chief Secretary announced that the stategovernment will also recruit additional Scientific Officers and ForensicExperts to ensure faster disposal of cases pending with Forensic ScienceLaboratory (FSL). She added that the process of approval to providecompensation to the victims will also be eased so that such payments are madewithout any delay.
She also directed the Home department toexpedite the establishment of nine other Fast-Track Courts, for which approvalhas been granted by the Government, in addition to the three such courtsalready operational in Ludhiana and Jalandhar. Notably, seven Fast Track Courtsdealing with rape cases are also already functional in the state.
Mahajan informed the meeting that to mark theInternational Women’s Day on March 8, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singhwill be launching various projects for the welfare of Women and Children.
DGP Punjab Dinkar Gupta told the meeting thatthe police department plans to set up Sexual Assault Response Teams in all 27Police Districts to deal with sexual assault cases, besides holding weeklymeetings to discuss and monitor progress of all such cases under investigationcases.
Gupta further said that Dedicated Help Desks,already established at all police stations and manned by women for attending to complaints of women, will befunctioning from SAANJH Kendras located in close vicinity to the PoliceStations. The DGP suggested that some additional district level SpecialProsecutors may be appointed to deal with cases related with sexual assault.
The Punjab Police Academy (PPA) Phillaur willorganise joint training sessions and individual workshops for variousdepartments, including Police, Health, Prosecution and Forensic ScienceLaboratory, for better coordination to handle such cases, he said, adding thatthe first batch of training will commence within three weeks, initially onlineand later in physical mode too.
For proper utilisation of the Nirbhaya Funds,the Punjab Police will upgrade forensic gadgets, mobiles and IT equipment etcto deal with online cyber offences against women and children, said the DGP.