UP’s anti-Romeo squad quieter now, thanks to IIM lessons

LUCKNOW: When three college students were slapped and dragged out of parks by the much-famed 'anti-Romeo squads' (ARS) of UP police in March this year while they were spending quiet time with their female friends in parks, endless brickbats for the Yogi government had followed. Since then, the squads have had a peaceful time negotiating with and identifying stalkers from lovers.

It's not because the incidents have shrunken. Instead, a Rs 20,000-a-day course in anger management, transaction analysis and emotional intelligence with management gurus of IIM-Lucknow and leading psychotherapists of the state have helped the ARS team's female and male constables.

While the B-school faculties gave lessons in gender sensitisation, body language and micro expressions, psyhotherapists relied on alternative approaches to "lower blood pressure" along withmeditation techniques.

"Self-leadership communication techniques had to be deployed to deal with the cops here. Focus was on communicating with the patriarchal world, where we question the women more than we do the perpetrator. So we would tell the police personnel to take assertive leadership but not without being empathetic in the situation," said human resources management professor Himanshu Rai at IIM-L who led the course training.