Hyderabad: Many elders in SHE team's net; 17 per cent of them are above 50
Hyderabad: At a private lower primary school in Abids, 10-year-old Leela (name changed) used to get anxious whenever her friend’s grandfather came near her.
The 63-year-old man, who used to come to drop and pick up his granddaughter, would approach Leela and touch her intimately while talking to her in the empty classroom.
One day Leela started crying when she reached home. When her mother enquired, she told her what had happened and her parents lodged a complaint with the SHE team, who tracked down the suspect, government pensioner B. Viswanatham of Himayatnagar.
Police checked CCTV footage in the class and secured evidence against Viswanatham. “He used to go to the classroom to pick up his granddaughter. When he saw the victim in the classroom with not many people around, he would touch her inappropriately,” said a SHE team official.
Following investigations, the SHE team booked a case under Section 354-A of IPC (for molestation) and Section 8 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. He was arrested and sent to judicial custody. Police records from both Hyderabad and Cyberabad show that around 17 per cent of those caught misbehaving with women and eve teasing were aged above 50 years.
Earlier, the SHE team arrested a 71-year-old man when he inappropriately touched women at the Koti bus station. In another incident, a 64-year-old man started talking to a woman while she was waiting for a bus at the Kukatpally bus station and invited her to come to his home. She called the cops.
The Hyderabad SHE team has arrested over 540 suspects red-handed for harassing women at public places this year. “A survey was conducted by an NGO in order to understand the reach of the SHE team. The result revealed that around 70 per cent of the people in Hyderabad were aware of SHE teams. The result is encouraging and victims are feeling free to approach the teams in many ways, over Whatsapp, Facebook, email, Dial 100, Twitter and through direct complaints,” said additional commissioner of police Swati Lakra.
