Romeo Squad - a much needed step towards maintaining law and order in UP!

Romeo Squad - a much needed step towards maintaining law and order in UP!

In the UP election campaigns, Amit Shah had promised safety and security to college going girls by providing an anti-Romeo Squad outside every college. Yogi Adityanath fulfilled the promise soon after being declared the CM of the state. The anti-Romeo squad is up and active. The motive behind the setup is to prevent girls from eve teasing and sexual harassment.

However, the anti-Romeo squad doesn’t just stand for that. They are being seen as the new treacherous face of moral policing that has been practiced by the right wing. The left wing is calling it nonsensical and treacherous while the right holds its stand on the squad being the symbol of protection to women.

Agree

1. Law and order

Law and order under the previous government was a failed machinery. Safety of women was a concern that was being overlooked and hence cases of sexual harassment and eve teasing were getting more and more common as vile men found them under no fear of police before taking filthy steps. The squad is meant to change this shameful status in the state.

2. Roadside Romeos

The squad does not stand against the idea of epic love of Romeo for Juliet. The new era of derogatory and objectified version of chasing a woman is what the squad is fighting against. Since long our movies, especially the regional ones, have shown the shameless extents to which a roadside Romeo goes in order to win the girl and the sad part is that the girl in those movie is actually shown to reciprocate soon after. Lust and love needs to be differentiated.

3. Crime against women in UP

• A report suggests that between March 15th to 18th August, in a span of just 5 months 1012 cases of rape and 4500 harassment cases were filed in UP alone.
• National Crime Records shows that UP is the state with highest crimes but the per capita crime rate reduces due to its large population which makes UP the 3rd safest state as per records.
• The NCRB (National crimes record bureau) states that Uttar Pradesh is the most unsafe place for women to be living in.
• In 2014, around 38467 cases filed were crimes against women.
• A CAG report on the rising crimes on women in UP revealed that in a comparative data analysis between 2010 to 2015, the crime rate had risen to 61%
• 1619 minor girls aged between 11- 16 were raped in 2014-2015 increasing from a number of 1033 rapes in 2012-2014.

4. Shortage of women police

There is an extreme shortage of women police personnel in UP where crime has been on the rise and there is lesser fear amongst goons of law and order. There is less respect for women and the request to increase the number of women police personnel by 33% was ignored earlier. In such critical time, when law and order has to be restored, a special squad for the protection of women is a much needed step.

Disagree

1. Why Romeo?

For a person of literary interest, it is very disturbing to see Shakespeare’s Romeo associated with sexual harassment and eve teasing. Romeo stands for eternal love and not hooliganism. The fear of westernisation is reflected from the name itself. The whole idea is being identical with curbing free space for boys and girls. It is indeed a fancy name for moral policing attached with the false agenda of protecting women.

2. Detaining lovers, friends, cousins

The anti Romeo squad which is supposed to be working towards proving free space to women have proven their real intentions to be somewhat different. There have been numerous reports where the squad came down heavy on lovers, friends and even cousins were detained.

It is no difficult task to differentiate between consenting couples and eve teasers harassing girls on streets. The intentions behind the setup of the Romeo squad could be right but there should be definitive terms set for differentiating and to ensure that innocent men are not unnecessarily troubled in the name of protecting women.