Lucknow, May 19: William Shakespeare's Juliet may have famously assured her boyfriend Romeo that names aren't important, but Yogi Adityanath's government has begged to differ.

It has quietly changed the name of its brainchild, state police's Anti-Romeo Squad, to Nari Suraksha Bal (Women Protection Squad).

Government sources said the decision to rename the squad, formed to protect women from roadside harassment but accused of acting moral police and bullying couples instead, had been taken a fortnight ago.

It wasn't immediately made public, they said, because the BJP poll manifesto had promised a police "Anti-Romeo Squad".

Rajendra Pratap Singh, minister for rural electricity service, confirmed the renaming to the media today. He didn't explain the reason, only saying that the "dignity of our daughters is our first priority".

But sources said the government had received complaints from the public saying the discredited squad's name was an insult to the Bard's Romeo, the epitome of the committed lover.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet plays down the significance of monikers by having Juliet say, in the context of Romeo being from her family's rival house of Montague, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Not all of Romeo's admirers seem to agree. Rituraj Mishra, a third-year LLB student at Lucknow University, had approached Allahabad High Court accusing the squad of violating civil liberties and demanding "Romeo" be dropped from its name.

Former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav too had asked the state government not to "defame" Romeo by linking his name to a police squad accused of tormenting couples in concert with Sangh-BJP vigilantes.

Adityanath had formed the squad the day after becoming chief minister on March 19. Police records show that more than 100 cases were registered between March 20 and April 30 accusing the squad of roughing up couples, even married ones, in the name of preventing "eve-teasing".

Half a dozen squad members have been suspended for misbehaving with young men and women.

Javeed Ahmed, who was state police chief till April 22, had sent six warnings to his force to stop harassing couples. He had also suggested that the police keep "private parties and individuals at bay" --- an allusion to the vigilantes accompanying the cops on raids.