Six years ago, New Delhi made headlines after a 23-year-old medical student was brutally gang-raped in a bus. Nothing has changed since the horrific incident as the city still remains unsafe for women.
The rise in crime has made finding accommodation for women close to the college campus a tough job. One of the most important criteria while selecting a PG is security. It has not only become a nightmare for students but also for the police as harassment cases in hostels have become frequent.
This academic year, the Delhi Police have prepared a security checklist for the paying guest accommodation owners, aiming to address security problems faced by the students.
Recently, a meeting was held between PG owners and Delhi Police officials, where the police officials asked the PG owners to be more cooperative, install CCTV cameras at the entrance, deploy guards and maintain a register.
Police will also be conducting surprise checks round the year to ensure that the owners are complying with the rules.
While the PG owners in Delhi prefer to run a girls' PG above boys', they told the police that the rowdy boys still loiter around their PGs and harass girls. "In our meeting, the PG owners told us that keeping boys in a PG is a huge risk but running a girls' PG is also not an easy task because men keep roaming around the area. Even girls complain about this issue," said a sub-inspector.
The North District Delhi Police will be deploying constables on campus as well as in residential areas. Apart from this, the local cops will also be patrolling the area.
For the students who want to leave the PG, a senior police official said "We have also asked the PG owners to not harass students and return their security money. If they fail to do so, we will look into it."
