Police receives 1,729 calls on Holi, most from women complaining against harassment

The police control room in Gurgaon received 1,729 calls on Thursday from different parts of the city. Of these, more than 380 callers were women complaining against harassment on the city streets.

A number of women called the police complaining against men misbehaving with them on the streets or forcefully touching them and applying colours. The rest of the calls were about minor fights and scuffles and many others were spam calls where drunk youngsters kept calling the helpline number to pull pranks.

Most of the complaints were received from urban villages, including Chakkarpur, Sikanderpur, Jharsa, and also from Sector 10A and Palam Vihar.

The ten phone lines of the control room were bombarded with calls and kept the staff busy throughout the day.

“Many mischievous calls were made by drunken youths to greet police officials on the festival,” said a police officer. According to a senior police official, at several occasions, PCR vans were rushed to the spot after receiving calls, however, it turned out that the calls were pranks. After getting to the spot, police officials were greeted by youngsters wishing them Holi and saying “Bura na mano Holi hai. No action was taken against such callers.

Around 1,500 police officials were deployed across the city and at crucial points and near villages to deal with any untoward incident. The PCR staff was on its toes as they rushed to each spot after receiving distress calls. At least 300 traffic police officials were also deployed on roads and were patrolling the streets. Senior police officials too made regular visits in the city, a police officer said.

The traffic police fined 43 offenders found to be violating traffic rules. The police disclosed that 27 people were challaned for not wearing a helmet and belt and 16 were fined for rash driving.

ACP (crime) Hawa Singh said, “Every year we receive around 1,600 calls but this year it increased. About half a dozen incidents of drunken brawls and hooliganism were reported from different parts of the city. Several calls were made by the police to complaint against men trying to forcefully apply colours or throw water at them.”