Insecure in Gurgaon

about 30 per cent of Gurgaon’s working population is female. That’s why it’s startling that this is the place that considers limiting the movement of women an adequate response to rape.

Gurgaon’s administration has decided that the most effective way of preventing rape is to bar women from working in pubs,commercial establishments and malls after the late,late hour of 8 pm. This decision assumes that rapists only strike late at night,that the onus of a woman’s safety rests solely on her and her employer,rather than on the police — those sworn and paid to protect. The victim of the latest rape was kidnapped at a location on a key arterial road in the city that has seen many such incidents.

There is a simpler solution to Gurgaon’s problem: efficient and tough policing that works with local communities on a zero-tolerance model. More women are assaulted in Gurgaon not because there are more dark alleys in the city or that more women work late into the night. They are under threat because the police have not been able to secure public spaces. It’s an administrative and policing failure. The local and state government should realise that incidents like these dent Gurgaon’s image and in these times of image-politics and image-economics that can mean the difference between a vibrant city and an avoidable suburb. So rather than telling women to stop working and go home at 8 pm,the administration should tell the police to get working.