Dikshit slams Delhi Police for insensitive approach

The insensitive approach of the city police, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Sunday, “had bred a lack of faith among people towards it”.

“The protests on the streets of the capital after the gang rape rang the bell for everyone to wake up,” Dikshit told journalist Karan Thapar on his programme, Devil’s Advocate on CNN-IBN.

According to the law. Delhi Police answers to the Central government, not to the chief minister. She also suggested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the nation on the December 16 incident could have come a little earlier instead, of a week after the “horrendous” crime.

 

Dikshit acknowledged that people “shy away” from helping others in distress because they feel they will be “harassed” by the police.

“It worries me. Yes. It worries me that the police force is not as sensitive, responsive and well-behaved as it ought to be. The judicial and bureaucratic system needs to be changed but it has to be thought out. But please remember, it is not going to happen tomorrow,” she told Thapar.

“The fault lies with the police. I have not minced my words (in saying) where the failure of this has come (from),” she said.

“It is not my job to appoint a Police Commissioner or take him away. It is the job of the home ministry and I am sure they will do something,” she said in reply to a question on who was at fault for the incident.

Dikshit said such mass protests were a challenge to politicians, bureaucracy, judiciary, police and to everybody, while “fully sympathising” with the anger and anguish of the people.

Calling the gang rape “horrendous”, she said the Supreme Court’s observation that women in Delhi are not safe was “telling” and says it all.