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AP DGP blames dressing style for rape, lands in soup
For the Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police, V Dinesh Reddy, despite putting in a reasonably good performance, 2011 ended on a sour note as he landed himself in a soup by his remarks on the changing sartorial style of women in the State.
In a remark which has left the women outraged across the country, Dinesh Reddy said that provocative and exposing dresses of women were on one of the causes for the increase in the crime against women.
The remarks came at the fag end of the year end Press conference. Presenting the police record card for the year, Dinesh Reddy said that incidents of rape and other crime against women have gone up. A total of 1,290 rapes were reported across the State till November.
When asked about the reasons for the same, Dinesh Reddy waxed eloquent not only over the dressing style of women and said that it was not in the control of police. He said fashionable dresses worn by women were one of the factors behind it.
“In coastal Andhra villages they (women) used to be very traditional but now they are also wearing Salwar Kameez. These things provoke men.They are not in control of the police, what I am trying to say, you can not attribute rapes to the policing”.
“Provocative dressing by women could be one of the main reasons for the increase in cases of sexual harassment. Due to the influence of movies things have drastically changed”, he said. In this context he also pointed out that the several schools had also banned short skirts.
But when asked whether he would recommend a dress code for women, Dinesh Reddy said that it was a democratic country and every body was free to wear whatever they wanted. “We don’t intend to impose any dress code”, he said.
Dinesh Reddy’s comments proved to be so damaging and outrageous that whatever he had said during his one hour Press conference was pushed to the background and he came under fire from almost every direction including the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and the State Home Minister Sabita Indira Reddy.
“It is not for me or any police officer to decide what somebody should wear”, said Sabita Indra Reddy.
In New Delhi P Chidambaram echoed the same feelings. “The Police are not the ones who should decided what women must wear, each one in this country is free to wear whatever he or she wishes to. And I don’t think there should be any kind of policing certainly not by the DGP”.
