Highlighting the safety of women as the top priority, Special Commissioner of Delhi Police’s Special Unit for Women and Children (SPUWAC), Ajay Chaudhry on Friday said the unit is organising self-defence camps across the city and people can approach the unit for conducting the same.

Addressing the closing ceremony of the summer camp organised by the SPUWAC for school-going girls here, Chaudhry said the Delhi Police has set a target of training five lakh women/girls in the year 2024 and also lauded SPUWAC officers, especially those from the self-defence wing for their efforts and imparting high quality of the training.

He said the endeavour of the city police was to ensure that the women are safe and secure, but also to empower them in every sense of the word, and added that the SPUWAC is committed to this goal.

According to the police, a total of 6,000 female students took part in the summer camp.

The self-defence summer camp was organised at ten different locations, and its closing ceremony held on Friday was presided over by the Director of Education GNCT, Delhi R N Sharma and Laxmi Agarwal, who is an acid attack survivor and a motivational speaker and the founder of Laxmi Agarwal foundation.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sharma said the Education Department would extend all cooperation to the Delhi Police for the safety of women, and added that the department has put CCTV Cameras in front of all the school gates and local police are always present at the time of school opening and closing to ensure that there is no untoward incident.

Ms Agarwal gave a highly motivational speech, which was very well received by female students, where she advised them to not hide anything from their parents, especially if they are facing any harassment.

She also praised the Delhi Police for imparting self-defence skills to girls and teaching them ways to protect themselves in any crisis situation.

Agarwal said if she had learned self-defence, she could have saved herself from the attackers.

The SPUWAC has been continuously making efforts to empower women and create a sense of confidence, legal awareness amongst them and to address their grievances.

To boost their self-confidence training programmes are held for school and college students, and housewives, through the RWAs.

Interestingly, through the training, the girls are made to learn how to make use of things like pupatta, a pen and handbags to protect themselves from attacks by anti-social elements, chain or bag snatching incidents, criminal assault, and other such situations.

The training helps in building up the self-esteem of women so that they do not feel vulnerable & humiliated.

According to the SPUWAC, so far, more than 5,57,118 girls/women have been trained through this initiative.

After receiving appreciation from society and the success of the self-defence training programmes besides routine camps, the annual summer and winter camps are also organized by the special unit of Delhi Police during summer and winter vacations across the national capital at different venues.

Apart from the self-defence training, nukkad natak, gender sensitisation programmes and lectures on awareness about new laws were also conducted across the ten venues.