Bekhauf Azaadi March organized on Chandigarh’s famous ‘gheri’ route
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Chandigarh, August 11, 2017: In the wake of Varnika Stalking case, the members of civil society group and students of Panjab University, Chandigarh on Friday night organised Bekhauf Azaadi March for safety and assertion of women’s claim on public space.
In a peaceful manner, the participanting women in this non-political march which also included male citizens sought to bring public attention to safety of women and violence against them.
It started off at 10 pm from Rose Garden with some speeches and moved towards its destination at Eiffel Tower replica in Sector-10 enroute about four kilometers distance on Chandigarh’s famous Gheri Route. The march was not only about Varnika Kundu but women’s rights and safety in general, said organisers.
A comprehensive agenda of the marchers largely based around their demands of fair investigation in Varnika's case, no ‘curfew’ timings for girls and working women hostels, making more female cops available at night, gender sensitization of police officials, proper street lights and night vision CCTV installation, making all the existing cameras operational, concrete action against drunk driving, impounding of the vehicles, getting the drunk drivers off road to avoid crimes and accidents influenced by alcohol and setting up a grievances redressal committee for women working in the unorganized sectors.
Banners, logos and slogans of political nature were strictly disallowed. The marchers raised only the endorsed women-centric slogans.
“We believe that women and other sexual minorities in India deserve to be able to live in society, free from violence. We believe in their right to speedy justice and their right to demand accountability from the justice system,” said Inayat Singh Kakar, one of the mobilisers of the march.
The organizers said this march was merely a beginning point of upcoming gender sensitization and women empowerment workshops aimed at holding up to the centuries-old patriarchal mindsets of the Indian households and the society at large.