Police stations in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s hometown Gorakhpur have now been given the additional responsibility of ‘Operation Asmita’, aimed at preventing sexual harassment in schools. Advertising The move is an “extension” of its controversial anti-Romeo squads, formed around one and a half years ago, soon after the BJP had come to power. Gorakhpur Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sunil Gupta, who has started ‘Operation Asmita’, said, “It is an extension of the anti-Romeo squads, and is focused on preventive steps to curb such crimes. Anti-Romeo squads have already been doing their job and we have extended the drive in the district. Police are already checking anti-social elements and eve-teasers on roads, in parks and shopping malls, but I thought we can do an exercise in private and semi-government schools, where we verify the conduct of teachers, drivers, gardeners, sweepers and peons. We hear about a lot of incidents of children being molested in school.” He further said, “Under the exercise, we have asked the in-charge of each police station to check the conduct of such employees, including private drivers that bring children to school. Under ‘Operation Asmita’, we are asking schools to provide lists of their teaching staff and other employees to verify their police records, if any. There have been cases in the past where someone from another district with a criminal record works as security guard with a gun in his hand all the time. Generally, schools verify such details, but still even they do not know what kind of a person is working at the school.” Advertising “In the past few months, sensitisation has increased with anti-Romeo squads operating. Operation Asmita is our internal drive and will go on alongside another initiative under which police will visit schools and talk to students from mainly junior and higher secondary classes. This is being done to familiarise them more with police. This way, even the police will get in touch with society,” the SSP said. With ‘Operation Asmita’ having been initiated around a week ago, The Indian Express spoke to three police station heads about its progress. Station House Officer (SHO) of Gorakhpur women police station Shalini Singh said, “Under this drive, we have increased our presence outside schools and colleges to identify anti-social elements in and outside these institutions. Such elements are not very hard to identify. We have also increased police presence.” Ravi Kumar Rai, SHO of Cantonment police station, said that under ‘Operation Asmita’ they are teaching schoolgirls self-defence. “We have some women police personnel trained for this and they teach self-defence at schools. They are instructed to keep pepper spray, and always give their families details of vehicles they are travelling in,” he added. Rajesh Kumar, SHO of Gulharia police station said that while the anti-Romeo squad initiative had not been that successful, ‘Operation Asmita’ holds new promise for safety of school and college students.

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