Curtailed freedoms, policed bodies Premium

Young couples in Uttar Pradesh navigate fear and surveillance by Anti-Romeo squads while seeking privacy and freedom.

In a quiet corner of Malka park, Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, Rohan, 25, and Malvika, 22, (names changed to protect privacy), are seated next to each other on the grass. Between them is a bag placed for ‘propriety’, so they are not subject to police scrutiny. The couple frequents the park after work days, but this Wednesday evening Rohan is introducing his partner to his best friend who works in a different city, via a video call.

Every time someone walks by, the couple looks up in panic. The fear of being questioned by the police’s Anti-Romeo squad lingers. “Are we doing anything wrong by sitting and talking?” Malvika says, fiercely. “If we have a few hours and we just want to be by ourselves, where do we go?” she says, in a social setting where partnerships out of choice are still considered shameful. The couple knows of people who have been questioned by the Anti-Romeo squad that was set up to “make places completely safe for women and girls,” the initial order had said.

In March 2017, the Uttar Pradesh police, under the direction of the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, formed Anti-Romeo squads in all 75 districts of the State. U.P. police data from 2017 to April 2024, accessed by The Hindu via a Right to Information (RTI) request, shows that 30,496 people were arrested, 22,559 cases were registered, and 1.26 crore people were issued warnings, which “provided them an opportunity for improvement”, the RTI response said.

In 2016, U.P. registered 49,262 cases of crime against women. In 2022, this climbed to 65,743. In both years, the State registered the highest number in the country. Despite the numbers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also in power in Rajasthan now, promised in its manifesto, to establish Anti-Romeo squads in every district, during the Assembly elections last year.

Squad control

The squads, 1,702 in all, with two or three under each of its NUMBER police station, are positioned in public areas that see a high footfall, such as education institutions, markets, and parks. Each police team is made up of a constable, head constable, assistant sub-inspector or a sub-inspector. Female staff constitute 4,166 in all, with 3,354 male staff, forming Anti-Romeo collective. The squads, sometimes in plain clothes, question, and if necessary pick up, youth who they identify as ‘Romeos’.

A UP police officer unfamiliar with the Shakespearean play, says a Romeo is a man, usually in his youth, found “loitering around”, either in a group or alone. Another officer at a Mahila Thana says, “We understand from the body language and the way they dress, if their intent is ‘good’ or not.” Young men with a few shirt buttons open, groups of men in the vicinity of a girls’ school or college, or just a man with a woman are targeted by the squads.