Staring at women will land you in jail, TN amends Motor Act to safeguard women

Chennai: In a move to make public transport safer for women, the Tamil Nadu government has amended the state Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, which has given a provision to lead to the arrest of anyone who stares at women while on board a bus.

Under the amended Act, the bus conductors are duty bound to remove any male passenger from the seat he occupies and ask him to alight from the bus if he has made any sexual overtures to a woman passenger after a proper inquiry with fellow passengers that he had indeed done a sexual overture to the woman passenger.

It also prevents the conductors from making inappropriate remarks and making sexual overtures.

Acts like staring, leering, whistling, winking, or sexually offensive gestures or singing songs, uttering words, taking any photos or videos, or any other form of electronic communication also fall under the category of crime in the state after the amended Act.

Conductors who behave inappropriately against women will also receive stringent punishment under the rule of law.

The amended Act also gives provision that if a conductor touches a woman who is boarding or alighting the bus under the pretext that he was helping her will receive punishment.

The notification issued by Home Secretary K. Phanindra Reddy said there should be a complaint book with serially numbered pages to be provided to any passenger for recording his views on the complaints about the shortage of the duties performed by the conductor and shall produce the so maintained books on demand by the police or the officials of the Transport Department for review.