“26 persons were held while passing lewd remarks at women”

Last week, police in Delhi, India, promised to undertake various initiatives to address the rise in reports of eve teasing and rape of women in the city.

Well, it sounds like they may truly follow through on some of them. Via The Times of India:

“In a drive started against eve-teasers by the police on the instructions of IG Vijay Kumar on Monday, 26 persons were held while passing lewd remarks at women or making obscene gestures in public places.

Cops nabbed the miscreants from market places, malls and temples.

IG Vijay Kumar said the drive will continue for some more days in order to check the growing incidents of eve-teasing in the city.”

Wow!! Can we please have that in the U.S.? (aAsuming the arrests wouldn’t be made in a racist or classist fashion…) If police did that regularly in major cities across the U.S., I imagine the number of harassers would decrease in a hurry. At the very least, it would get everyone talking about street harassment, there were be op-eds galore both for and against the arrests, all the news pundits would want to discuss it, and more women would feel able to share their stories.  Getting an issue into national dialogue is how social change happens.

Readers in Delhi, how are these arrests being taken by citizens of the city? Already eve-teasing receives a lot of media and governmental attention so I’m not sure the arrests would increase it significantly, but is it?