Title - Only 129 female cops to guard 20 lakh women on Mumbai trains

Mumbai: Much of India is outraged by the acts of a mob that molested a teenage girl on a Guwahati street on July 10. What is a greater outrage is the fact that such episodes keep repeating themselves regularly all over the country. While the depravity of the wrongdoers is certainly reprehensible, what has contributed to this nightmare is the fact that more often than not - apart from knee-jerk reactions - the authorities fail to learn any lessons.Consider the state of the city's local train system. Recent stats show there are only 129 women constables in the Government Railway Police (GRP) force, who are responsible to ensure the safety of nearly 20 lakh female commuters on Central and Western Railways every day.The numbers are startling considering about 70 lakh people travel by the two railway networks in the city and suburbs daily. GRP has a workforce of 3,500 personnel.As per the rules, 30 per cent of the staff should be female, which, obviously, isn't the scenario.Crying shame To make matters worse, complaints from women travellers of harassment meted out to them in various forms is on the rise.Last year, 517 cases of sexual harassment at railway stations or inside trains were registered. Till June this year, the figure had already surpassed 250. Women commuters claim many more cases go unreported and unregistered.GRP officials say the increasing instances are worrying them too.