Uttarakhand Police summons firm after report ranks Dehradun among 10 most unsafe cities for women

Dehradun, Sep 10 (PTI) Uttarakhand Police have issued summons to a private firm after they published a survey report describing Dehradun as one of the ten most unsafe cities in the country for women, officials said on Wednesday.

Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ajai Singh said the team involved in preparing the report and the managing director of the firm behind the survey, P Value Analytics, have been summoned to explain within a week on what basis they made their claims.

"The summons is for inquiry purposes only to know how they conducted the survey, the target groups, etc," he said, claiming that there were "factual inaccuracies" in the report.

A representative of the company, Mayank Dhaiyya, appeared before the SSP on Tuesday and said the survey was conducted for research purposes for university students. Two teams were engaged for the purpose, one for data collection and another for data analysis, he added.

However, police alleged that Dhaiyya had no satisfactory answers.

Singh said the summons has been issued to the firm as the survey report leaves many questions unanswered, creating doubts about its veracity.

"For instance, it is not clear to which age group the interviewed women belonged, whether they were working women, college-going students, housewives, tourists or senior citizens," he added.

The data given is also rather confusing, the officer said, as the report claims that 33 per cent of women in Dehradun are said to be satisfied with police patrolling, but a city with 11 per cent on the same parameter was ranked better than Dehradun in terms of women's safety.

Creating a negative perception like this through the survey may cause unnecessary panic among parents whose daughters study in the city, the SSP said.

"I want to assure them that Dehradun is a safe city for women. There is a toll-free number 112 for women in distress, with a response time of less than 14 minutes," Singh said.

There are 14,000 CCTV cameras that keep a vigil on the city's streets round-the-clock, he said, adding that the Gaura Shakti app that aims to ensure women's safety has been downloaded by 16,000 women.

He further said that the Hotel Association in Dehradun have expressed anger over the report as it has damaged Dehradun’s image and affected their hotel bookings.

If the company does not give a satisfactory answer within a week or the facts provided by them are found to be baseless, then necessary legal action will be taken against it, the SSP said. PTI ALM ANM ALM ANM SKY SKY