Women, religious minorities should be protected: Rajnath

Home Minister Rajnath Singh Monday underlined the need for women, religious minorities and people belonging to the north-eastern region of India living in Delhi to be provided with foolproof security.

He made these comments while addressing a function organised here to mark the 68th raising day of Delhi Police.

"Women's safety is a major issue," Singh said, adding that modern technology should be utilised to enable quick response to those in danger.

All mobile phones, irrespective of their make, should be provided with a special button that could send message to police, thereby help could reach the distressed within minutes, he said.

Work in this direction is already on and soon all mobile phones would have this facility, the minister said mentioning 'Himmat', a mobile phone-based application for safety of women in Delhi.

He said it was a step in the right direction and Delhi Police should come out with more technological solutions for modern-day problems and issues.

Singh had launched Delhi Police's mobile phone app Himmat Jan 1.

Touching upon issues relating to minorities, he said security should be provided to all religious places.

He was careful not to mention the attacks on Christian institutions in the city.

The minister, however, mentioned the 1984 Delhi riots against the Sikhs and said the Centre had already constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe into the riots.

"I am confident that now justice would be served to those affected by the riots," he said.

In the past two months, six Christian institutions were vandalised in Delhi. This led to protests with community leaders urging the government to look after them.

With regard to the north-eastern people, he said: "The people from the north-eastern region should not feel alienated in the national capital."

He also asked the police to be "considerate to the poor" and "tough on criminals".

"Delhi being the national capital has people from all corners of the country. There are poor people earning their livelihood working on road-side stalls... you should be considerate to them but you should be tough on the criminals and others who create problems here," he said.