Jamshedpur, Aug. 19: Ghatshila police faced a strange problem, when the non-resident Indian girl from America was gangraped by four tribal youths on the bank of Subarnarekha a few days ago.

The cops had to rush to the steel city — the East Singhbhum district headquarters — in search of women police to escort the girl to MGM Hospital for medical check-up.

According to the norms, a female rape victim has to be escorted by women constables to the hospital.

Since there was not a single policewoman available in the subdivision at the time, a female constable had to rush to Ghatshila to escort her to the hospital. Ghatshila police sources said the two female constables posted in Ghatshila were “on leave” that day resulting in the crisis.

The state faces a shortage of women police in almost every district.

Senior police officials admitted that the lack of women in the police force was a hindrance in tackling crime against women. According to officials, Seraikela-Kharsawan district is the worst-hit.

Of the total strength of 350 police constables in the district, only seven are women.

“There is a need to have more policewomen in the districts as criminal activities involving women are on the rise,” police officials said.

Police officials added that of the 18,000-strong police force in the state, only 5 per cent were women.

There were just five women of the DSP rank and four in the rank of SP in the whole state.

Director-general of police R.R. Prasad said there were about 8,000 vacancies in the police.

“According to the rules, we recruited 3 per cent of the vacancies with female candidates,” he said, denying shortage of women police.

“We have opened separate women cells in nine districts to tackle gender crimes. These cells address problems that women face and work to redress them,” he added.

Citing the reason for the poor work standard of the women police, a senior officer said, “Most of the recruitment for women police constables are done on compassionate grounds. Not even one per cent of the recruitment is based on merit. The female constables and havildars lack the mindset to work.’’