A young woman who had dialled the police helpline to complain against lewd calls kept getting them five days on, the repeat harassment a reminder of how ineffective the police’s ways of dealing with such complaints can be.

“I have reported the matter to the ASK helpline and Regent Park police station. What more do I need to do? The stalker is calling again, sometimes from the very number that I had given to the police,” she said on Friday, two days after Metro had highlighted how her distress call to the helpline had been made light of by a cop.

She had called the helpline on July 6 after receiving at least 70 crank calls in seven days. The cop manning the helpline had told her “boys are like that”. She was asked to visit a police station if the calls continued.

The next day, she redialled the helpline, only to find that the cops had not kept any record of her complaint the previous night. She then went to Regent Park police station and lodged a general diary.

For the next two days, the stalker kept quiet following a few words of warning from an officer at the police station. But the caution worked for only two days. He started calling again from Wednesday, though not so frequently.

“This means either the stalker did not take the police warning seriously or the cops did not do the needful to stop the stalker,” the victim said.

Sources said the cops at the helpline were asked to give individual docket numbers to complainants. This was to ensure that the caller didn’t have to repeat her story when she called again to track the status of her case. “I received six calls since reporting the case to the police, so I called the helpline again on Thursday night. They took note of it, gave me a fresh docket number and assured me that they were working on my previous complaint too. They gave a similar assurance on Sunday,” she said.

Sources in Lalbazar said the officers should have checked with the woman whether the warning to the stalker had its effect or not. “Had they called the woman, she would have told them that the harassment was continuing and the cops could have taken tougher action,” a senior officer said.

After her second call to the helpline, a Lalbazar officer called her to inform that the stalker had been “traced”. “They said the stalker sounded incoherent. They assured me they would pursue my case on Friday,” she added.

An officer said Regent Park police station, where the complaint was lodged, should “share responsibility” too. “Considering the nature of the woman’s complaint, a case can be started under Section 354D of the IPC. It deals with stalking, both physical and electronic,” he said.

Officers at the police station said a case could not be initiated because the victim had lodged a general diary — a simple recorded statement that doesn’t warrant a formal case. An FIR, which demands immediate attention, should have been more effective.

Legal experts said the offence should determine whether a complaint should be a general-diary entry or an FIR, not the will of the complainant or the police. “In this case, it was the duty of the police to have treated it as an FIR,” a senior lawyer said.