Women cops started patrolling around girls’ colleges during class hours from Tuesday to curb the rise in eve-teasing incidents in the town.

Town police have made arrangements for intensive patrolling by women cops assisted by male constables around the institutions after two FIRs were recently lodged against criminals harassing as many girls.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) Saurav Kumar told The Telegraph that he has constituted a special cell to keep tabs on youths harassing girls during class hours. The police have formed three teams of women cops for intensive patrolling around colleges such as Langat Singh College and Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University. Usually, classes are held between 8am and 2pm.

The teams, led by station house officer (SHO) of Mahila police station Sunita Kumari, have been given the responsibility to break gathering of boys loitering around women’s institutions, accompany group of girls to their college if eve-teasers frequent the area and keep tabs on cyber cafés and shops frequented by girls to ensure they are not harassed by youths.

SHO Sunita Kumari said: “The women personnel are assisted by male constables. On Tuesday, the teams moved around the colleges and areas frequented by girl students. No incident of eve-teasing was reported though.”

The development — patrolling around the women’s colleges — was necessitated after a Langat Singh College student and a history postgraduate student at the university were eve-teased on June 27 and July 4, respectively. Both the girls lodged FIRs against the criminals at Kazimohammadpur police station. They also petitioned Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University vice-chancellor (VC) Ravi Verma and Langat Singh College principal Suniti Pandey to intervene in eve-teasing incidents around educational campuses.

Mintasha, a fashion designing student at Mahila Shilpa Kala Bhavan, said: “I have complained several times to our principal about boys loitering outside the main gate of our college.”

To crack down on the eve-teasing incidents, Suniti Pandey mobilised support of the principals of other women’s colleges. A delegation comprising Mahila Shilpa Kala Bhavan’s Mamta Rani, Mahant Darshan Das Mahila College’s Nirmala Singh and Ram Briksha Benipuri Mahila College’s Nirmala Kumari Jha met VC Verma on Sunday. They exerted pressure on him to appeal the district administration to deploy police around their institutions.

The VC in turn spoke to zonal inspector-general of police Pankaj Darad and SSP Saurav Kumar with the request to restrict movement of eve-teasers around girls’ institutions.