Rajnath Singh launches mobile app for women safety (Lead)

New Delhi, Jan 1 (IANS) Home Minister Rajnath Singh launched a mobile-phone based application Thursday for the safety of women in the capital.

The app - Himmat - is an initiative of Delhi Police. It will allow smartphone users to call the police control room and also trigger a 30-second audio and video recording at the press of the phone's power button.

Police said Himmat will help users contact police in the quickest possible time in an emergency.

The user will be asked to feed five emergency contact numbers of friends or relatives into the app's data base. When an SOS call is made, a message will be automatically sent to these five numbers.

"In this way, not only police, but the user's relatives and friends too will be able to come to her rescue," an officer said.

"The SMS alert is also transmitted simultaneously by the Police Control Room to the Police Patrol cars in the area and the local Station House Officer (SHO) through the Delhi police cyber highway."

During an emergency, the mobile app captures audio and video from the environment of the person in distress and transmits the same to the Police Control Room.

"Himmat caters to the category of employed women who have smart phones and who travel alone sometimes late at night," the officer said. It can be downloaded free of cost from the Delhi police website.

The police officer further added that the app is only available for Android supported mobile phones.

Call back by police control room, video recording, SMS alerts for family and friends, victim details and alert on Facebook are some of the features of this app, the police officer said.