‘Stay home to avoid rape’: Gujarat traffic police ‘safety drive’ posters draw citizens’ ire

Posters allegedly sponsored by the Ahmedabad traffic police for a safety campaign have stirred up a controversy, as some of them urged women to stay home to avoid getting raped.

The posters, which were pasted in a few localities in the city, have invited criticism from the opposition, which raised questions about women's safety in Gujarat.

Posters with statements like 'Do not attend late-night parties, you could be raped or gangraped' and 'do not go with your friend to dark, isolated areas — what if she is raped or gangraped?' were pasted on road dividers in Sola and Chandlodia areas and have since been removed.

The Gujarat Pradesh Congress Sevadal called the posters "Extremely shameful!", taunting in an X post that 'Gujarat chief minister [Bhupendra Baghel], under whom the home department and police operate, accepts the government’s failure by allowing posters to be put up publicly stating that our sisters and daughters are not safe'.

Deputy commissioner of police (Traffic West) Neeta Desai clarified that the city traffic police had sponsored posters concerning road safety, not women's safety.

Satarkta Group, an NGO, had created the controversial posters without the consent of the traffic police, she claimed.

"The NGO had approached us and said they wanted to organise traffic awareness programmes in schools and colleges and wanted our staff to accompany them. We were shown posters related to traffic awareness. But such controversial posters were not shown to us and were plastered without our consent," Desai said.

She added that the posters were immediately removed when the issue was brought to their notice.

The Gujarat Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) too took a swipe at the BJP-led government, saying the posters exposed the state of women's safety.

"The BJP government in Gujarat talks about women's empowerment, but the ground reality is completely different. In the last three years, more than 6,500 incidents of rape and more than 36 gang rapes have occurred in Gujarat, with more than five rapes per day," the AAP said in a statement.

"The chief minister and BJP leaders talk about women's safety, but today in a big city like Ahmedabad, these posters express the reality of Gujarat. Our question to the CM is whether the women of Gujarat should go out of the house at night or not?" it said.

With PTI inputs