BELONIA, March 5 (TIWN): At a time when the state Tripura is combating hard enough to restrict crimes against women, the state govt. on its ambitious plan decided to increase the number of women police personnel to one-third of its total strength in the next couple of years. The number of all-women police stations on the other hand is being increased from the existing four to nine soon. As part of it another women police station to opened shortly at Belonia under South Tripura. "Currently, 13 percent of the total police constables and ten percent of the total police force are women. Our government`s target is to raise the percentage to 30," Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said recently.

On yet another drive one women police station to opened at Belonia under South Tripura district very soon. For the time being the PS will be opened at the existing traffic unit office at Belonia. The Belonia SP Bhanupada Chakraborty had received an order from the Director General of Police (DGP) on Tuesday for opening up the women police station. The PS will be inaugurated within the next 2 to 4 days.

However it may mentioned here that Chief Minister Manik Sarkar recently said that in Agartala that currently the state’s police force had only about 10 per cent women, while that among constables stood at around 13 per cent. “Our government has fixed a target of raising the percentage of women in the state police force to 30 per cent,” he said. A decade and half ago Tripura’s police force had only about two per cent women.

It was only this week that 300 women constables had joined the Tripura Police after completion of nine-month training. Trained in the KTD Singh Police Academy at Narsing-garh, about 15 kms from the state capital, these 300 women who were aged between 18 and 27 years, also had 86 from the tribal communities. More and more educated women were getting attracted to join the police, with an official pointing out that while the minimum educational qualification for constables was fixed at Class X pass, there were as many as 33 graduates and a couple of post-graduates among them.

The number of crimes against women has gone up in Tripura in recent years, with the Crimes ‘in India ‘report for 2013 published by National Crime Records Bureau (NCB) showing that number of rape cases increased from 229 in 2012 to 233 in 2013. Likewise, the number of cases of kidnapping and abduction of women and girls has gone up from 114 in 2012 to 124 in 2013. Tripura had also registered 29 incidents of dowry deaths and 827 cases of cruelty by husband and his relatives during 2013, the NCRB report had said.