July 28, 2018: A woman is raped every 13 minutes in India. As the situation reaches desperate proportions, one police commissioner thinks there might be an answer. In the city of Jaipur, Rajasthan, a new, all-female police squad, mounted on motorbikes, aims to keep women safe on the streets.  

Launched in May 2017, the pioneering unit in Jaipur, Rajasthan, patrols areas where women are more likely to be, such as bus stops, universities and parks. Each woman on the squad completed a month-long training program, which included martial arts, fitness, meditation, learning sections of the law needed in the field and horse-riding.

‘We knew the lady patrolling units might face men bigger than them and it could act as psychological deterrent,’ explains Gaurav Srivastava, the Additional Commissioner of Police spearheading the project. ‘So the purpose of the horse riding was to show them with the right kind of approach and mindset you can control something even more powerful than yourself.’ The women are are also mounted bikers. In pairs, they zig-zag across the city on motorbikes, interrupting crime when they see it taking place.

Read more: Rebels With a Cause (www.elle.com)