NEW DELHI, December 16: Condemning the incident wherein a woman corporator was burnt to death in Mumbai, the city's women councillors demanded strict penal action against those guilty of perpetrating the crime. In a special meeting convened by Deputy Mayor Meera Agarwal, the women councillors also demanded that Home Minister L.K. Advani provide adequate security to all women councillors in the city. Leader of the Opposition, Rambabu Sharma, who was also present in the meeting, said that those guilty of the heinous crime should be hanged.The members unanimously passed a proposal to constitute a core committee to look into acts of violence against women councillors. Agarwal pointed out that this was not the first incident of its kind. She said that in the past, two women councillors of the city, Sudha Sharma and Kanchan Bhaskar, had been attacked. Despite that, the government had made no security arrangements for the women councillors.
Agarwal said that the core committee would soon be constituted and one-third of it's members would be women. She added that the committee would meet every month. Agarwal also said that the women councillors would soon meet the Union home Minister to put forward their demand for security guards.
Congress councillor Shalu Malik said that the women councillors had put forward several suggestions, including allowing them to have blue lights atop their cars, licenses to buy revolver and police security during tours of their wards. The MCD has 46 women councillors and 42 of them attended the meeting.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
Printer-friendly page