After COVID-19 break, Pune police relaunch 'Buddy Cop' initiative to ensure safety of working women

Pune: The Pune police on Wednesday relaunched their 'Buddy Cop' initiative aimed at ensuring the safety of working women, especially those in the Information Technology (IT) and other private sectors where they have to work in late night shifts, an official said.

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The city police had first launched this initiative in 2017 when Rashmi Shukla was the police commissioner. It was rolled out in the wake of the murder of a 25-year-old woman employee of Infosys in January that year.

The initiative, however, was stopped due to the COVID-19 situation in the last two years. Under this initiative, there will be around 15 buddy cops at every police station level, who will create a WhatsApp group of women working in various sectors in their respective jurisdictions.

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Each group will have 100 to 150 working women, a buddy cop, one police officer from police chowkie and a senior police inspector. During a distress situation, the women in the group can easily contact their buddy cop and seek help, a statement issued by the city police said.

Meanwhile, Pune police also restarted the 'Police Kaka' and 'Police Didi' initiatives for the security of school and college students.