KOLKATA: The woman chief minister of India’s West Bengal state unveiled plans yesterday for 65 all-female police stations, as authorities tried to assuage growing anger over a gang rape in New Delhi. “Sixty-five all-women police stations will be set up across West Bengal to deal with crimes against women,” Mamata Banerjee, the firebrand leader of the Trinamool party, told a rally in the north of the state.

“Ten of these stations are already functioning,” she added.

Banerjee, who was until recently a coalition ally of the main ruling Congress party, also announced that 158 new courts were being set up in the state to fast-track cases involving crimes against women.

Her comments came after the federal government launched a drive to recruit more female officers as a confidence-building measure. That campaign will start in the capital Delhi, where a 23-year-old student was brutally gang-raped on a bus on December 16, sparking nationwide protests.IANS