Bhubaneswar: The National Commission for Women on Wednesday conducted a public hearing on the Police Bhavan premises in the city.

Commission chairperson Rekha Sharma talked about sensitising the police officers regarding the complaints made by the women in the daylong interaction programme.

While as many as 12 petitioners were summoned for the public hearing, the commission conducted hearing of around six cases related to acid attack and viral video. Several police personnel, including additional director-general of police (crime branch) Santosh Kumar Upadhyay, were present in the programme.

"We have started a campaign for sensitisation, as 50 per cent of the complaints, which we receive, are related to police apathy across the country. So, we are sensitising police officers on how to take complaints from women. We have conducted similar programmes in other states, including Punjab, Haryana and Jharkhand," said Sharma.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau's statistics, rape cases against women saw marginal decrease in 2016 in Odisha. While as many as 2,251 women had been raped in 2015, the figure came down to 1,984 in 2016. Similarly, cruelty against women by their spouses, too, witnessed a decrease in 2016 with 2,781 women facing the domestic violence as against 3,608 women in 2015.

Upadhyay said the commission had pointed out of not getting the action taken report of the police in 315 cases in the past four years. "Some cases got delayed because of communication gap or delayed response. Today, we submitted action reports of 231 cases. Concerned police officials were also present during the hearing of petitions," he said.