Bhopal Police Commissioner Sanjay Kumar flagged off a She-Shakti vehicle rally on Sunday, kicking off a citywide push meant to run through the festive weeks ahead. Call it a pre-Navratri rollout. The city's markets, religious sites and dandiya grounds are about to get a lot busier, and the police want women officers visible in all of them.

The plan itself is straightforward. Women personnel, ranging from constables up to inspectors, will patrol old and new Bhopal on foot and on the special She-Shakti vehicles that took to the streets Sunday. They're not just driving past. Officials say teams will camp out at spots the department has flagged as vulnerable, near market clusters, temples, fairgrounds, garba and dandiya venues, and any public event expected to draw a crowd. Each police station has been told to map its own trouble spots and station a dedicated women's patrol there.

The messaging is zero tolerance, and the department is putting some teeth behind that phrase. Harassment, eve-teasing, stalking, indecent behaviour, any of it, is supposed to trigger immediate action, not a complaint filed and forgotten. Senior officers will monitor how the teams perform in the field, according to the police.

There's also a direct appeal built into the campaign, and it's aimed squarely at women who might otherwise stay quiet. Don't sit on it, the police are saying. Whether it's a stranger following you home, an unwanted message, a threat online or something worse, the instruction is to call the police straightaway rather than let it slide. Cyber harassment gets named specifically, which tracks with how much of this kind of intimidation has moved online lately.

What makes the timing obvious is the calendar. Festive season in Bhopal means packed markets, late-night garba, religious gatherings that stretch into the night, exactly the conditions where harassment complaints tend to spike and exactly the conditions where a visible women's patrol is supposed to make a difference. Whether it actually changes behaviour on the ground is the part that only plays out over the next few weeks.

For now, the rally has happened, the teams are being briefed, and the vulnerable-spot mapping is underway station by station. The real test starts once the crowds do, when Bhopal's markets and grounds fill up for Navratri and the festivities that follow it.