The State police department’s “Disha SoS” mobile application launched recently to help women in distress has received an overwhelming response going by the huge number of downloads made by smartphone users, police say.
In a release by the State police headquarters, Disha Special Officer Deepika Patil said the application had been downloaded over 50,000 times in the first four days, and many users had appreciated the government for such an initiative.
The officer said the application was given 4.9 stars rating on the Google’s Play store and most of the users were testing the functions of the application. “From February 9, on an average, about 2,000 users per day made test calls to the command control room through the application,” the official said.
She said the quick response by police in reaching out to the first user who was harassed in a bus in Eluru prompted many other mobile users to install the application.
According to Ms. Patil, the Disha SoS centre received three complaints through the ‘Hand Gesture’ feature. Users have to first enable the feature in the app and shake the mobile thrice to make SoS call to the police.
The command control centre also received one each case in Krishna and Visakhapatnam districts and the victims were approached and sent to One-Stop Centre for women in their respective areas, the release said.
Also, in East Godavari, a woman made an SoS call complaining that her cousin was harassing her and the police reached out to her and took the accused into custody, it was stated. Responding to another SoS call from West Godavari, a person who was harassing a girl was booked and arrested.
Ms. Deepika said that most of the complaints being received were related issues and necessary action was being taken in every case.