A pro – active phone-up programme has been launched in Trichy police range comprising Trichy, Pudukkottai, Karur, Ariyalur, Perambalur districts to stop domestic violence against women and children during COVID 19 –lockdown period.

While the world is undergoing an unprecedented lockdown to break the chain of corona virus infection, it is imperative to address the incidental problems consequential to lockdown.

The above initiative to address the domestic violence has been started with the following objectives- To break the chain of violence against women forced in households during lockdown; to rescue women caught up in a abusive relationship.

Data collected in the last four years including the year 2020 points to the fact that there have been 14,930 incidents of harassment/ violence of physical or/ and psychological nature against women in homes, and as many number of victims involved in these incidents.

As it is not advisable to physically verify how the victims are holding up, in the interest of social distancing, police officers from all 15 All Women Police Stations (AWPS) in Trichy Range along with their teams have been calling each of the 14930 victims of domestic violence , reported in the last four years, to find out whether the abuse continues/has aggravated during the lockdown period.

To prevent any unintended negative fallout of phone calls in a happy family, enquiry would start with general awareness information on corona leading further to questions to ascertain whether the woman suffers any abuse.

A standard format has been designed with 10 questions to the respondents. Unattended calls are attempted again. If a male member attends the call, follow up is done to get to speak to the women of the house.

Wherever continuing violence is reported physical verification is done to find out the condition of the women so as to take appropriate action. If required the victims are shifted to safer homes.

The results so far have been encouraging. In a few cases the abusers have been found behaving violently after suffering withdrawal symptoms to alcohol addiction and they have been referred to de-addiction centres, a release said.

To improve the effectiveness of the programme, a second line of checking is done through randomly generated phone numbers by district level nodal officers and a super check of 1% of cases will be done at the range office by DIG, the release from the police added.