Indecent exposure: Race Course female lock-up still not moved from gawkers’ view

ASP says Women’s Police Station should have separate building.

LAHORE: Exposure remains a problem for suspects at the lockup at the Women’s Police Station.

The women-only police station, the only one in Lahore, is located on the second floor of a building on Jail Road. The Race Course police station is located on the ground floor of the same building.

However, the lock-ups of both stations are located opposite each other at the entrance to the building, leaving the women suspects free to be ogled at by passers-by or their male counterparts. The toilet in the female lock-up is surrounded by a wall just four feet tall and is visible to people entering the police station.

“This is exploitation,” said Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Riffat Bukhari, who was formerly in charge of the Women’s Police Station. “This must be moved.”

ASP Bukhari had said much the same in an interview with The Express Tribune five months ago when she still headed the police station. She had said then that the female lock-up would be moved to the second floor and would be accessible only to police officers and family members of the suspects.

The Women’s Police Station was set up in 1996 to handle women suspects, but mainly to make it easier for women victims of crime to report their complaints. The police station is staffed entirely by women.

Talking to The Express Tribune on Sunday, the ASP said that the Women’s Police Station should be moved to a different building. “Currently women have to pass through two floors full of men to get to the police station,” she said. This discouraged women from reporting crimes at the station.

Bukhari said though she was no longer in charge of the police station, she was compiling a report about the benefit of shifting it, or at least the lock-up. She said she would forward the report to the capital city police officer and the inspector general of Punjab Police.

Police personnel deputed at the gate of the police station said they were wary of gawkers at the entrance and stopped men from peaking into the lock-up for women.

“Of course, we can’t stop the inmates in the opposite cell from looking,” said one of the constables. “Being Muslims, it is a shameful matter for us. They are supposed to be highly regarded and protected. These women are merely suspects, not neccessarily criminals.”

Police sources said that Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shaukat Abbas had during his time as Lahore SSP (Operations) pushed for shifting the lock-up. However, since his transfer out of Lahore two months ago, the matter had been shelved.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2012.