Telangana's Mahbubnagar district's Superintendent of Police, Rema Rajeshwari, hit the right chords when she opened up about the incident prompting her to set up a "Mobile Safety" vehicle to help domestic abuse victims amid the coronavirus lockdown.
While speaking to the Humans of Bombay, the officer said that a woman's call from Kanpur triggered the initiative. Recalling the incident, SP Rajeshwari said that a woman telephoned to report that her sister had not called her for three days and also revealed that her sister's husband would hit her, and she was worried about it.
"We sent a dispatch team and found her in such a terrible condition, it shook me," said the SP. "She was badly bruised, hadn't had a single drop of water in 3 days and was writhing in pain."
The police department, after rescuing her, immediately rushed her to the hospital where she had to undergo three days of treatment. The survivor later filed a case against her husband. The department also helped in arranging inter-state travel so she could move from Telangana to Uttar Pradesh.
"That incident was an eye-opener - there were so many victims of domestic violence living with their abusers and they couldn't even file a complaint!" she exclaimed.
Understanding the severity of the situation where a woman would be locked up with their abusers and might fail to reach out for help, she decided to set up a mobile safety vehicle that would seek out domestic violence survivors instead of waiting for them to approach the police.
"To help them, I set up 'Mobile Safety'- a vehicle with my team members doing rounds across the district and in 2 weeks, we had 40 cases! Alongside, more members of my team stepped up to help the general populace," said Rajeshwari.
Since being shared on Thursday, the interview has collected over 45,000 'likes' on Instagram, and another 18,000 on Facebook. The comments section of the posts has been flooded with people praising SP Rajeshwari and her team.
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