The Gujarat traffic police has found itself in the middle of a storm after a few posters they had allegedly sponsored for a safety campaign urged women to stay home to avoid getting raped.
The sexist and fear-mongering posters that were pasted in a few localities of Ahmedabad have been removed after they triggered an outrage.
“Do not attend late-night parties, you could be raped or gangraped,’ said one poster. "Do not go with your friend to dark, isolated areas, what if she is raped or gangraped?,” read another.
The safety campaign was run by an NGO named Satarkta Group.
The traffic police, meanwhile, tried to distance themselves from the controversy, saying the NGO had created the posters without their permission.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic West), Neeta Desai, also clarified that the traffic police had sponsored posters concerning road safety, not women's safety.
"The NGO had approached us and said they wanted to organise traffic awareness programmes in schools and colleges and wanted our staff to accompany them,” Desai was quoted as saying by PTI.
“We were shown posters related to traffic awareness. But such controversial posters were not shown to us and were plastered without our consent,” she said.
Additional Commissioner of Police (traffic) N.N. Chaudhary also clarified that the NGO was allowed to put up only traffic awareness posters.
"We never approved such language. It is unacceptable," he said.
The Aam Aadmi Party targeted the BJP government, saying the posters exposed the state of women's safety in Gujarat.
"The chief minister and BJP leaders talk about women's safety, but today in a big city like Ahmedabad, these posters express the reality of Gujarat. Our question to the CM is whether the women of Gujarat should go out of the house at night or not?" it asked.
The AAP claimed that more than 6,500 incidents of rape and more than 36 gang rapes were reported in Gujarat in the last three years.