Tuesday, August 2 2005 19:03 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Maintaining that the national average of women in police was only 2.5 per cent, Home Minister Shivraj Patil today (Aug 2, 2005) said efforts were being made to take this percentage to ten in the next few years in a bid to check the spurt in crime against women.

Replying to a spate of queries during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha, Patil conceded that there had been a "spurt" in the number of cases of rape in the national capital with most of them being reported from slums where the population has been rising on an average by five lakhs a year.

He said the population per average availability of police personnel in Delhi was 1:650 and added apart from raising their numbers, efforts were being made to woo women to join the force by providing them various facilities.

Patil said the average of women in police in Delhi was four per cent.

There was a humorous intervention when BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) leader V K Malhotra while asking a question also wanted to know whether Patil would accept the moral responsibility of growing crime and quit his post.

The Home Minister quipped, "I concede his birthright to seek my resignation", leading to laughter in the House.

Patil replied in the negative to a question whether the Government was considering new laws to tackle rapes, conceding that "laws are there, but the question is of their implementation".

Several members, mostly women, raised serious concern over the spurt in crimes against women in Delhi and pointed out that pornography and nudity was freely available on the internet and television.

Speaker Somnath Chatterjee commented, "You have missed the print media" which was printing such photographs.